


Truly One in One Million

by CV12Hornet



Category: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha | Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everything not to do with Lost Logia, Fate appears in this I promise, Gen, Magical Girls, Nanoha is making it up as she goes, Tags and fandoms subject to change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23740882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CV12Hornet/pseuds/CV12Hornet
Summary: Yuuno Scrya never made it to Earth. Neither did Fate, nor the TSAB. Nanoha Takamachi must seal the Jewel Seeds and face the Book of Darkness without any magical backup. At least she still has her family and friends for support. She'll need it, for these Lost Logia are not the only threats she must face. Earth is a much stranger and more magical place than anyone knows, and dark forces covet it...
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, denizens of AO3! First-time story poster here, but certainly not a first-time fanfiction author. See my profile over on Fanfiction.net. Anyway, this story is one I've been trying to execute for a while now, with multiple failed attempts sitting on my hard drive and another sitting forlornly on my Fanfiction.net profile. I've changed things up in my writing process to be more consistently productive, so hopefully this is one I can actually finish, or at least bring to a satisfactory conclusion. Hope y'all like it!

Captain Chrono Harlaown gripped the rests of his command chair as his ship, the Time-Space Administration Bureau dimensional cruiser _Claudia_ rocked violently under him. Around him, the bridge crew cried out in surprise, but thankfully no one was thrown out of their seats, unlike the last few times they’d hit a rough patch in the Dimensional Sea.

“The distortion’s smoothing out,” he murmured to himself.

If it were up to him, this mission would have waited another six months. That was the earliest the projections on the dimensional distortion wrapped around what was left of Unadministered World 97 said it would be sufficiently calm to safely traverse. But it wasn’t up to him, and it hadn’t even been really up to the Admiralty. Not for the first time in his career, Chrono mentally cursed Fate Testarossa’s name, throwing another in for Jail Scaglietti while he was at it. It had been her, spotted scurrying to UA 97’s grave, that had sent the entire TSAB into the tizzy that got Claudia panic-deployed. She was that dangerous.

Not for her combat ability, though Chrono knew first-hand how scary she was in a fight. She was dangerous for the knowledge she held as the clone daughter of Precia Testarossa and a longtime associate of Jail Scaglietti, probably the two smartest scientific researchers the TSAB had ever produced, coupled with a notorious lack of scruples. There was almost no chance that UA 97 was still intact. But in the extremely slim chance that it was – and the more likely chance that there were remains – absolutely _nobody_ wanted to risk Testarossa, and by extension Scaglietti, getting their grubby mitts on the two Lost Logia that had been on the planet at the time.

_Claudia_ shuddered under Chrono again, drawing him out of his thoughts. Now, if only the Dimensional Sea could cooperate!

“Reverting to realspace in ten seconds!” the navigation officer called out. Everyone, Chrono included, immediately braced for impact – and for getting their molecules scattered across a dozen dimensional planes. “Three… two… one!”

With an almighty shudder, accompanied by a creaking groan from the ship’s frame, _Claudia_ exited the Dimensional Sea. And before any of the sensor techs could train their sensors on the situation, the entire bridge, with the classic Mark One eyeball, saw the impossible: a round, cratered rocky body looming, and beyond that, a planet in blue, green, and white. Notably absent were any planet-altering scars, though Chrono could admit to himself that he didn’t have a very good idea of what the planet had looked like before the dislocation.

“Lieutenant Bravada…” Chrono prompted. Bravada was the chief sensor officer, filling in for Chrono’s wife Amy, who was back on Mid-Childa on maternity leave. And he had been gaping out the window like everyone else when Chrono verbally prodded him. Amy would have already been giving him information.

“Gimme half a second here, Captain, there’s a lot to sift through,” the sensor officer replied in a rush. Satisfied that things were in hand – mostly – Chrono sat back to wait and marvel at the planet in front of him. 

He’d been on the investigative team assigned almost ten years ago to find out what had happened to UA 97, after a dimensional distortion of tremendous strength had rocked all of dimensional space. It had taken some doing, but it had eventually been traced to Precia Testarossa trying to seize a set of Lost Logia known as the Jewel Seeds, essentially magical batteries that responded to the desires of whoever touched them. Definitely powerful enough and dangerous enough to create a dimensional distortion of that size if mishandled. Worse, during the investigation it had come out that Admiral Gil Graham, Chrono’s mentor, had diverted the Book of Darkness, _another_ planet-destroying Lost Logia, to Earth and bonded it to a young girl in an attempt to seal it once and for all. It had shaken him, for sure.

That UA 97 _was_ destroyed was taken practically on faith. It had no magical population and minimal space capability. In other words, no means whatsoever to handle Lost Logia like the Book or Jewel Seeds, and no means to handle a dimensional distortion of any size.

To find it intact instead…

After about ten minutes, Bravada electronically sent over a preliminary report. Very preliminary; it was a rather short stream of consciousness easy to read but a tad difficult to parse. The basic gist was that their eyes were not lying to them, and that UA 97 was still intact. Somehow. There were also a ton of various anomalies floating around that the entire crew section was working on, but concrete answers there would take a while.

Satisfied, Chrono had just swiped away the report when a warning flashed on his screen. He tapped the holographic interface, bringing up tracking data of an incoming bogie. His eyes widened some at what the passive sensors were telling him. Based on the small size, high speed, and enormous mana emissions, it had to be some sort of mana rocket. They were also being painted by some sort of sensor, albeit a wide-area search sensor. An attack?

He quickly dismissed that idea. No smart military would fire off just one missile at a target. Too easy to spoof or shoot down. Still…

“Gunnery, get me a targeting track on that bogie. Just in case,” he ordered. “And backtrace it. I want to know where this thing came from.”

The order was swiftly and effectively carried out, and then it was time for the waiting. The tense waiting of wondering whether this was an attack, and anticipation of a brief but intense spurt of violence. In the end, it wasn’t anything the crew did that ended the tension, and much sooner than expected at that. The bogie, still very far away, started decelerating in a surprisingly Newtonian maneuver. It was quickly apparent that the bogie was planning to match the _Claudia’s_ velocity vector. And shortly after that, Chrono was given answers as to where the bogie had come from in the first place.

“UA 97 is supposed to be a non-magical world,” Chrono said weakly. “So what is _that_ doing there?!”

‘That’, the sensors had determined and put on screen, was a castle, of tan stone with a central domed building and two smaller, also domed outbuildings, built on a jagged hunk of bedrock that looked for all the world it had been ripped out of the ground at some point. A reasonable assumption, considering it was sitting unmoving at that Lagrange point between UA 97 and its moon. That all _screamed_ ‘magical’.

“Captain?” said Gunnery. “The bogie’s stopped, 100 kilometers out. Pulling up a visual.”

Chrono wrenched his gaze away from the castle to the new feed. Once again, he found himself wondering how the earlier surveyors had missed the clearly blatant signs of magic.

The bogie was a _person_ in a blue and white Barrier Jacket, what was clearly a Device of some sort clenched in her left hand. A mechanical frame in the same color scheme, a rocket booster from the nozzles in the back, wrapped around her limbs, though it was open in the front. The mage’s features were concealed by a metallic helmet, probably for oxygen supply. The oddest part was the lack of a visible power source. _No_ mage could propel themselves as fast as this one had solely on their Linker Core.

“We’re being hailed,” one of the communications officers announced. “Just need to match the frequencies…”

“Captain.”

Chrono glanced curiously at Bravada, who had walked up to his chair. “Yes, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Well, we’re still doing detailed scans, but we found… well, I thought it best to bring it up immediately,” Bravada said. “We focused on large macro-level changes and any active Lost Logia. The former was a wash, aside from the system’s ninth orbiting body fusing with its moon, but…” He gulped. “Captain, we detected two _active_ Jewel Seeds.”

That… was bad. “Where?” he hissed.

“Well, sir, that’s the thing. One of them’s in there-“ Here he pointed at the floating castle still on screen and Chrono felt his stomach drop into his shoes. “And the other’s there.”

Chrono followed Bravada’s finger to the mage sitting outside in space. Now his stomach was below the deck plates. “Explain,” he got out through gritted teeth.

“Captain, as near as we can tell, that mage has an-“ Bravada gulped again. “An _active_ Jewel Seed fused to her Device.”

Chrono desperately wanted to yell and rant and rave about how impossibly reckless and stupid that was. How it was a cosmic injustice that that mage hadn’t splattered their essence across this entire solar system. But frankly, at this point his quota of life-shaking revelation was exhausted for the day, and he had a first contact in his lap to take care of. So all the yelling and ranting was shoved into a box where he could scream about it later.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said instead, very calmly. “Let me know when you locate the remainder.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Bravada left, and Chrono was given a few minutes of calm to think over the situation and, well, calm his feelings. First contacts were complicated, but the kind of complicated for diplomats and lawyers. In this case, the obvious orbital capability meant some privacy, and an ability to deal mostly with a small, singular group. He also had an overriding emergency to handle first before serious diplomacy. So, phone home to drop this live grenade in the diplomatic corps’ laps, and focus on getting the Lost Logia situation under control and finding Testarossa. 

Right. Doable. _Not_ reason to scream into the void.

Even after all that, Chrono still had time to get a little bored before communications figured out how to patch through the message and begin auto-translating it from existing language data.

_“-and intentions. I repeat: this is Nanoha Takamachi of the Magical Defense Initiative. Unidentified vessel, you are trespassing in Earth orbital space. State your intentions and allegiance. I repeat-“_

The message looped on from there. It was firm, direct, and given the Jewel Seed lodged in the Device (which he could see near the center of the shaft now that he knew where to look) the implied threat was obvious and more than a little frightening.

“Can we respond?” Chrono asked.

“We can,” came the nervous response.

“Then get me a connection to her.”

It took some fiddling, and a bout of ear-splitting static, but they connected. “Miss Takamachi, this is the Dimensional cruiser _Claudia_ of the Navy of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. We are in pursuit of a dangerous criminal and have reason to believe she came here to retrieve some very dangerous artifacts that were lost in this region ten years ago. I assure you, we mean no hostile intent.”

_“Oh, perfect!”_ Takamachi immediately _chirped_ in a wild contrast to her earlier no-nonsense message. _“I’m glad I don’t have to blast you out of the sky.”_

It was a sentiment Chrono wholeheartedly, if privately, agreed with.

_“Anyway, we should probably sit down together and work out a plan,”_ Takamachi said. There was a pause, the kind ripe for pregnancy. _“I’m- do you have a hanger I can land in? I can’t stay out here forever…”_

“A joint plan can be worked out,” Chrono replied, and meant it. Having local help was handy for investigations like this when all they could contribute was knowledge of the planet. Takamachi looked to be able to provide a lot more than just that. “And the _Claudia_ doesn’t have a hanger, we use teleporters. If you could just stay still for a few seconds…”

_‘Captain to teleporters,’_ Chrono telepathically sent. _‘If you could lock on to Miss Takamachi, please.’_

Back to Takamachi, on screen she could be seen undoing her spaceframe. _“That’s great, let me just make sure this gets back to Castle Seraphim in one piece.”_ The feed went silent for a moment, though from body language Takamachi was still talking to someone. She flashed a thumbs up and then came back on. _“Okay, beam me up, Scotty!”_ A pause, with confusion visible on both sides of the comms. _“What do you mean that’s not-“_

The transmission cut again, Takamachi clearly arguing with whoever she was in communication with back on… Castle Seraphim, she called it? Snickers made a round through the bridge, neatly cutting through the tension.

_‘Captain Harlaown, locked onto Takamachi. Sending her to Room 5.’_

Chrono quickly flipped through his mental map of the _Claudia._ That was right next to the conference rooms near the outer hull skin. Perfect.

_‘Enforcers Jimny, Baleno, meet me in teleporter Room 5,’_ he telepathically broadcast. Standing, he addressed the bridge. “Keep us here. No sudden moves, and fire only if fired upon.”

“Yes, Captain!”

Confident his bridge crew could handle things, Chrono squared his shoulders and exited the bridge for teleporter Room 5.

So he missed a yawning portal passing by at high speed and swallowing up Takamachi’s space frame.

~o~

If Takamachi cared about the two guards eyeing her after she was teleported in, she didn’t show it. She just gazed at everything around her with childlike wonder. That wasn’t Jimny’s and Baleno’s faults; with their black, spiky Enforcer Barrier Jackets and practiced Enforcer scowls, they looked quite intimidating. And while Baleno, an ordinary-looking Mid-style mage, left it at that, Jimny used a Neo-Belkan style, which meant his Device was a hefty poleaxe and he himself was a towering pile of muscle. So yes, intimidating. Takamachi just seemed immune to it.

She at least bowed when Chrono walked in, to a near 90-degree angle. “Captain,” she said politely. “Thank you for having me aboard.”

The formality was unfamiliar, but easy enough to mimic. “Welcome aboard,” Chrono replied, bowing shallowly. From the continued presence of Takamachi’s smile, he’d done _something_ right. “Follow me, please.”

Takamachi fell in behind Chrono as he led her and the two Enforcers to a nearby conference room. Despite the short distance, they passed several crew, and Takamachi greeted all of them with at least a smile or wave. Despite himself, it warmed the TSAB officer to her. Chrono had gotten very good at spotting false cheer over the years, so the very genuine warmth Takamachi radiated gave him hope that

Takamachi’s cheer lasted long enough for everyone to get to the conference room and sit down, and for Chrono to send an order for tea. Then she grew deathly serious.

“Tell me more of these artifacts,” she said. “Precisely how dangerous are they?”

“I’m sure you’d know,” Chrono deadpanned, pointing at her Device. More specifically, the Jewel Seed stuck in the haft. “Considering you’ve somehow attached one of them to your Device.”

Takamachi blinked, looking at the Jewel Seed like she’d just realized it was there. “Nyahahaha… whew! I thought something new had shown up. The Jewel Seeds aren’t a problem, we’ve got most of them safely sealed. The only ones active are this one and the one powering Castle Seraphim, and we haven’t had any problems with that yet.”

“You’ll forgive me for not finding that comforting.” Sighing explosively, Chrono leaned forward and tented his fingers. “How did you even seal all the Jewel Seeds? How did you get your Device, for that matter, or that castle?” He stiffened as a terrible thought came to him. A bitter memory he could never forget how hard he tried. “How did you survive the Book of Darkness? I know that was on this planet!”

“Mou! That’s three different stories,” Takamachi protested. “It’ll take forever to tell them!”

“I have time,” Chrono retorted.

Takamachi grimaced, but she answered. “Okay, so when I was nine I found Raising Heart at a local park…”


	2. Chapter 2

It was a beautiful spring day as Nanoha Takamachi, age nine, walked home from school with her best friends Arisa Bannings and Suzuka Tsukimura. Their route took them through one of Uminari City’s many lush parks, this one a small patch of forest that covered the ground in a shady canopy. It made for a pleasant break from the sun with the seasons turning from spring to summer.

Nanoha, talking and giggling with her friends, her brown hair done up in two short pigtails and wearing her white school uniform, was the very picture of an ordinary girl. She was great in math class, but every child has that one subject they’re really good at. She lived with her mother and father and older brother and sister; for a living, the family ran a fairly popular bakery. This in stark contrast to her two friends. Arisa, for all that she was culturally as Japanese as they came, had been born in America to a rich family, and Suzuka’s family was just as wealthy. Quite _un_ -ordinary. None of them cared, of course. To the trio, visiting Midori-ya was just as fun as going to the massive mansions and petting the dogs and cats, respectively.

As the three girls approached the exit from the park, the conversation turned towards the recent career day – and from happy chattering to one of Arisa’s usual lectures.

“Seriously, Nanoha, quit moping over that career sheet. So you don’t know what you want to do when you grow up. Who cares! Just you wait, half the kids in our class are going to change their minds in a week.”

“You and Suzuka know what you want to do,” Nanoha weakly pointed out.

“That’s ‘cause we have rich parents who sat us down and walked us through it when we were five,” Arisa retorted.

“Four,” Suzuka chimed in. “There was a flowchart.”

Arisa shuddered. “Your mom scares me sometimes, Suzuka. But anyway!” She turned back to Nanoha, face drawn in an adorable scowl. “Just put something generic like police officer or something, turn it in, and quit angsting about it!”

“Mou, okay, okay, Arisa!” Nanoha protested. She desperately cast about for a change of subject, and her eyes fell on a red glint coming from the bushes lining the trail. Curious, she jogged over to the bush and picked up the source: a simple rope necklace with a gorgeous red gem, perfectly round, as its centerpiece.

“Wow, that’s pretty!” Suzuka gasped from over Nanoha’s shoulder.

Nanoha’s sense of responsibility, strengthened mightily by the lengthy hospital stay her father had undergone even earlier in her life, kicked in at that. “We need to find a police station, turn it in,” she declared as she stood up. “This belongs to somebody, and they might come looking for it.”

“Ah, so responsible,” Arisa sighed fondly. “Oh well. I think there’s a police station a couple blocks from the park…”

As the girls walked away to find the station, none of them noticed a fuzzy black blob behind the bushes, watching them leave with gleaming red eyes. Once they were out of sight, it slinked away. Not now.

~o~

The nice policeman behind the desk hummed thoughtfully as he examined the gem, before putting it down. “Honestly, I think you could probably just take this home with you and nobody will mind.

Nanoha blinked, surprised. So did her friends. “But isn’t it… valuable?” Suzuka asked.

“Not really. I did a stint as a diamond salesman in the academy, this is probably artificial sapphire,” the officer said, giving it a tap with his nail. “It’s worth, oh, 5000 yen or so. We’ll hold it for twenty-four hours in case it has sentimental value for someone, but I think it’s going to be yours, young lady.”

Nanoha beamed. “Thank you!”

Responsible or not, Nanoha was still nine years old. The thought of getting such a pretty necklace as a reward for being responsible left her on cloud nine for the rest of the day and in a bright mood the next. That her family applauded her decision and expressed eagerness to see the necklace over dinner only added to her buoyant mood.

After school she picked up the necklace – the officer had been right about nobody claiming it – and wore it home with a spring in her step. Her family appreciatively oohed and aahed at it when she got home. Life was good. Even having to do homework in her room did little to dampen her mood.

The sky was just getting dark when Nanoha put down her math textbook, having finished not only the assigned problems, but also next chapter. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head – and then, with an almighty crash and the sound of splintering wood the whole house rocked to its foundations. Nanoha was pitched to the floor, and spent a few dazed seconds gaping in shock before she darted under her desk. No more shocks came, though. Instead, Nanoha faintly heard shouts downstairs, and… growls?

Satisfied that whatever just happened it wasn’t an earthquake, Nanoha crawled out from under her desk and headed down the stairs. Three steps above the bottom, she finally got a look at the dining room, and she froze.

Squatting on the remains of the family’s dinner table was a horse-sized ball of black. Fuzzing at the edges indicated that the black might be fur, but it look nothing like any animal Nanoha had ever heard of. The only features the thing had were two red, vaguely feline eyes. The rest was just roiling black.

It also had several thin segmented tentacles out and about, and Nanoha followed them to a sight that made her heart jump into her throat: her brother Kyouya and sister Miyuki, both wielding swords and fending off the tentacles. To her relief, neither appeared to be injured, but they also weren’t making any headway against the monster.

At that moment, Nanoha’s father Shiro burst into the fight with a sword of his own. Vaulting over the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen, he lunged at the monster swordpoint first, clearly intent on skewering it and ending the fight there. The monster, though, was too fast; it withdrew a few tentacles from swatting at Kyouya and Miyuki and brought them out to bat Shiro’s sword aside. Well, all but one. That one darted after the wielder himself. Once again, Nanoha’s heart leapt into her throat, but Shiro hopped back, buying enough distance to bring his sword back up to deflect the tentacle.

None of this diminished the fear Nanoha felt. Now her family was on the defensive again, and somehow she could see that compared to her siblings Shiro was… _stiff,_ was the best way to put it. Memories flashed through her mind of long evenings in the house, alone, her family desperately trying to keep the household afloat with Shiro in the hospital. Memories of _seeing_ her father, wrapped in bandages, hooked up to and surrounded by machines, deathly still.

“Nanoha, over here!”

Flinching, Nanoha glanced back over to the counter, where she could see her mother Momoko poking her head around and indicating that she should join her. Carefully, Nanoha crept over, noting the house phone in her mother’s hand.

“I’ve called the police,” Momoko said, her normally warm eyes shining with fear. “Just… stay here with me where it’s safe, okay?”

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. That was a monster right out of a bad dream out there, and Nanoha was nine with no cool sword-fighting skills. What could she do? And yet… what the monster could do to _her_ wasn’t what scared her – even if the counter seemed awfully flimsy against something that could bust through walls.

“B-But what about Papa?” she blurted out. “I know h-he got h-hurt, that’s w-why he was in the hospital s-so long…” Momoko visibly winced, and Nanoha pressed her advantage. “I saw him when attacked that monster, he’s not moving right! He could- he could…”

“I know…” Momoko whispered, almost too softly for her daughter to hear over the din of the fight. “I know, Nanoha. But what can we do?”

The pain in her mother’s voice was palpable, and it was old. Nanoha knew it was old because it was the same pain she had felt all those years ago. And it was that sudden sense of empathy that brought her to her senses. She could do nothing. Nothing but stay quiet and out of the way. _Again._ It rankled. It made her want to yell, and scream. And yet the logic was unassailable.

Then she heard a cry of pain, and cold rationality flew right out the window. Damn not being able to do anything! Nanoha stood, to jump into the fray and do _something-_

_“I am here, my Master.”_

The mechanical yet feminine voice out of nowhere brought her up short. “Who’s there?” she demanded, head on a swivel trying to find the source.

“Nanoha, what-“

_“Down here, my Master.”_

Almost reverently, Nanoha grasped the necklace she’d only just gotten, pulling it up to eye level. “Was that you?” she breathed.

_“Yes. I am Raising Heart, Intelligent Sealing Device.”_

A pause. Nanoha tilted her head in confusion. “Um…”

_“I can also be shot.”_

Nanoha felt the counter bump up against her. The situation was becoming more surreal by the second. There was a shadow monster in her living room, her siblings and father knew how to use the swords displayed prominently in the dojo-

Curious, Nanoha peeked over the counter just in time to see Miyuki catch one of the tentacles on the edge of her blade and, with the subtlest of movements moved it out of the way. And then she let her momentum carry her so that she ducked under another tentacle. Okay, so they didn’t just know how to use the swords, they were _really good at it._

Anyway, her new necklace she’d found on the ground could talk. And shoot, apparently. Somehow.

At this point, Nanoha had met and exceeded her weirdness quota for the day. So she simply accepted that the gem was talking, it was apparently offering her power, and if she wanted to fight she needed power. So she simply asked, “What do I need to do?”

The reply she received was not in words. Not words that could be heard with ears, at least. And despite the length, Nanoha knew she could recite it. Knew it down to her soul.

“I am the one who gives you this charge: release your power to your contracted master. As the winds fill the sky, and the stars fill the heavens, so shall my heart fill with courage, and my hands with magic! Raising Heart, set up!”

Light flashed over Nanoha, and power flowed through her as if it had always been there. She watched, fascinated, as a fancy white and blue dress, bearing a strong resemblance to her school uniform, wrapped around her, and the gem in her left hand expanded into a golden staff, a ring three-quarters encircling the same red gem grown to the size of her hand. The transformation finished, and her feet touched the ground. Apparently she’d been floating?

“Augh!”

Miyuki’s pained cry tore Nanoha out of her transformation, and back to the fight in the living room. Miyuki lay in a crumpled heap, clutching her right ankle, and Kyouya was right in the middle of being thrown into a wall. With two assailants out of the way, the monster wrapped its tentacles in one twisted mass, plainly a second away from smashing it down on Shiro.

“No!” Nanoha shouted, aiming her staff at her father and willing him to be safe.

 _“Protection,”_ Raising Heart intoned, and a pink wall of energy imposed itself between Shiro and the monster. The tentacles struck – and bounced clean off before dissolving. The monster reared back, screeching.

Nanoha blinked and glanced at her hand. “Eh? I did that?”

_“You did, my master.”_

The monster’s roaring, seemingly closer, drew Nanoha’s attention again, just in time for her to dive out of the way of it. The beast crashed clean through the low counter and into the rear wall, demolishing half the kitchen and drawing a cry of terror from Momoko. That chased away the confusion and fear. Now, the young mage wanted nothing more than to _destroy_ this monster. That meant an offensive spell. Normally, she would’ve been ecstatic to learn a new spell, to untangle its intricacies, but for now she just relied on Raising Heart to do the heavy lifting and provided the mana and willpower.

_“Sealing Mode.”_

Raising Heart sprouted two wings of light just below the head. Nanoha aimed the staff at the monster, still trying to extricate itself from the wall, and ribbons of pink light snapped out and wrapped around the creature, digging into its “flesh”. The monster shrieked, and thrashed, but it could not break free.

Giving her staff a twirl, Nanoha ended the flourish by pointing it at the monster and declaring “Jewel Seed XXI! Seal!”

The ribbons dug deeper, deforming the darkness like a tube of toothpaste, and then mummified the creature entirely and _squeezed._ The ribbons wrapped up in a tight ball before dissipating. All that was left was a strange, bluish-purple, four-sided gem that clattered to the floor.

For a long moment, Nanoha and Shiro, the latter still holding his sword in a guard stance, warily eyed the gem as it rose up, and then floated up to Raising Heart. Whatever they were expecting, it was not for it to sink into the jeweled head.

 _“Jewel Seed XXI sealed,”_ the device proclaimed.

Finally, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Then Nanoha ran up to Shiro, coming to a halt just short of him and eyeing him up and down. “Um… Papa, are you okay?”

Shiro followed her eyes where he’d unconsciously pressed his hand against his side. He gave her a reassuring smile and reach down to rub her hair. “Yeah, I’m just bruised. I’ll be sore for a few says but I’m alright.”

“Oi, don’t we get any concern?” Miyuki deadpanned from where Kyouya was helping her off the floor.

Nanoha adopted a stricken expression, which prompted Miyuki to hastily try and wave her off.

“I’m joking, okay? I-“

“Are you alright?!” Nanoha wailed, rushing over to check on her siblings with tears streaming from her eyes. With a sigh from Miyuki and a warm smile from Kyouya, they let her fuss over them. Thankfully, bruises, scrapes, and a few thin cuts seemed to be the worst of it aside from Miyuki’s right ankle. It was already a livid purple, and she very pointedly was not putting any weight on it.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain,” Miyuki explained to placate Nanoha’s distressed expression.

“Um…”

“That means that with time, immobilization, and regular icing her ankle will heal fine,” Kyouya assured her.

Sirens wailed outside the home, and Nanoha, realizing she was still wearing her magical dress, hastily dismissed it right before a police officer poked his head in.

“What the hell happened here?” he muttered, before calling out, “Anyone need help in here?”

“Me,” Shiro said, stepping out into the debris left around the hole. “Took a hit to the ribs. I’m pretty sure they’re just bruised but best to be sure. My older daughter has an ankle injury. And my son-“

“I think I’ll be fine with just the first-aid kit, Dad,” Kyouya said as he helped Miyuki over to the hole.

“Nanoha, why don’t you help me make some tea? I think we all need it after what just happened.”

Jolted out of her anxious watching, Nanoha thought it over. Tea did sound nice. Soothing. And Raising Heart had more magic to show her. Some sort of handcuff spell she could teach via simulation. With a mental agreement, the young mage jumped right into the simulation while simultaneously turning for what was left of the kitchen.

And promptly stubbed her toe on the stump of the counter. Okay, maybe save the multitasking until she could practice it more.

~o~

While Nanoha and Momoko brewed up a pot of tea, Shiro spun a story about a crashed truck that had left in a hurry. A story that prompted skepticism until another car pulled up and a more senior officer had a quick chat with Shiro. An ambulance arrived not long after, Nanoha bustling out to deliver tea and the first-aid kit to Kyouya. Thankfully, everyone’s instincts were correct. After wrapping Shiro’s ribs and Miyuki’s ankle, the paramedics decided that a hospital stay was not necessary and let them go.

Despite the late hour once all the first responders finally left, the family still made the time to sit down and figure out what the fuck had just happened.

After an awkward moment, Shiro opened, “Nanoha, do you have any idea what… _that_ was?”

Nanoha closed her eyes, her mouth moving in silent conversation. After a moment, “Raising Heart says that, um, it was probably a rat? Or some other small animal that found a-“ She frowned. “Um, Jewel Seed? Hang on, I’m asking her what a Jewel Seed is.”

The Takamachi family remained silent as Nanoha went through a whole silent conversation. Her expression morphed from confusion to curiosity to confusion again and then to some sort of understanding.

“They’re… basically wish-granting magical batteries?” Nanoha answered. “But kind of dumb so they latch onto the first desire they run into and fulfill them in a stupid and destructive way.” A cute frown passed over her face. “That’s really oversimplified, there were a lot of big words I don’t understand. Raising Heart kind of lost me when she started talking about dimensions and energy potentials. Whatever an energy potential is. Anyway, I think that’s a decent summary.”

That Takamachis all shared a glance, a glance that said one thing: “I know what each word means but together they make no sense.” Suddenly, Kyouya jerked in realization.

“Um, if they’re batteries, how much energy are they holding?” he worriedly wondered.

A moment passed while Nanoha conferred with Raising Heart. “Raising Heart, I have no idea what an erg is, can you please give me an example?” Abruptly, she blanched. “Uh… when you say ‘All of Honshu’…” Somehow, she grew even whiter. “That’s the best case?!”

Momoko gasped, covering her mouth. Kyouya and Shiro both sucked in a breath through her teeth. And Miyuki thunked her head on the table, groaning, “And there are at least twenty more of those things out who knows where…”

Somber silence fell as everyone pondered the consequences of more of these things activating in populated areas. It made for grim imagining.

“Dad, do you think any of your old friends might be able to seal and fight these Jewel Seeds?” Kyouya asked.

Shiro shook his head. “This is beyond anyone just good with a sword. The Kazanaris, maybe, but-” Something ugly flashed over his face. “No, best not to bring this to their attention.”

Silence, once again. And then…

“I’ll do it. I’ll seal them all!” Nanoha declared.

“Nanoha…” Momoko tried.

“Mama, I’m the only one who can do it. Uh, that we know of, but how would we even find someone else who knows magic? And Raising Heart is bonded to me and we don’t know if the Jewel Seeds can even be sealed without her. It has to be me.”

Shiro turned a stern, impassive look on Nanoha, who flinched and kept going.

“A-And I can learn more magic! Raising Heart knows all kinds of cool spells, and they’re all controlled by math, and I’m really good at math! So I’ll get stronger, and safer, and-!”

“If you’re going to do this,” Shiro cut in, still stern. “Then you’re going to learn how to fight as well as use magic. Two weekdays in the dojo, plus both days on weekends.” He stroked his chin. “Obviously, you should learn how to use a staff, but live sparring would be best to build up experience…”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Miyuki pointed out.

“I can set my magic to stun, it’s fine,” Nanoha offered. She blinked as both her siblings gave her pitying looks. “What?”

Abruptly, Nanoha found herself swept into a hug by her mother, Momoko burying her face in her shoulder.

“Stay safe. Please,” she whispered.

“I promise, Mama.”

The two broke apart – and Nanoha let loose a jaw-cracking yawn.

“I think it’s time we all got to bed,” Shiro chuckled, standing. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Do you want me to tuck you in tonight, Nanoha?”

Nanoha wanted to protest that she was way too big to be tucked in at night, but after everything that had happened, she needed the comfort. So she nodded, and let her father lead her to bed.

That night, her dreams were filled with flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if any eagle-eyed viewers will spot a little bit of long-term foreshadowing I snuck in...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope people don't mind, because we're hitting the fast-forward button for essentially the rest of season 1. Let's be real, without Fate to try and take her head off there really isn't any reason to go into every Jewel Seed battle. We'll just be hitting the highlights here.

The next several weeks were the busiest of Nanoha’s short life so far. She and her parents had worked out a short list of excuses to use if she ever needed to duck out of class to seal a Jewel Seed – none of which she’d had to use, thankfully – but she still had to go to class and do the homework. That had been nonnegotiable. Added on top of this was the combat training with Shiro, searching for and then sealing the Jewel Seeds, and her own individual magic practice. The result was that she had practically no free time.

She straight-up _didn’t_ have any free time for about the first week, and when she was persuaded to take a break it resulted in a Jewel Seed activating in the middle of downtown Uminari. Thankfully, the tree that sprouted as a result mostly just damaged pavement and her new bombardment spe- er, long-range sealing spell, worked beautifully, subduing the Seed in one shot. Regardless, feeling guilty, Nanoha had vowed to not take another break until all the Jewel Seeds were sealed.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the point of view, Nanoha also shared that vow at the dinner table that night after she finished telling her family of the sealing.

~o~

“Nanoha-“ Kyouya started, Momoko and Miyuki also looking worried, but at Shiro’s hand on his forearm he went quiet. Her father turned to her, and the young girl instinctively sat up to listen a little better.

“Nanoha, take it from someone who’s trained in martial arts most of his life and used those skills on the job,” he said. “You _need_ to rest your mind and your body, or you’re going to damage something. It can be your motivation – we call that burnout – or it can be your body. I understand feeling like you’re not doing enough, but if you push yourself too hard you won’t be able to do _anything.”_

“But Papa,” Nanoha protested. “I don’t use my body to fight. Or, well, not very much. My magic-“

Shiro held up a hand, and she went silent. “And can your magic be overstressed, too?”

Nanoha raised a finger and opened her mouth – and then closed it and let the finger droop. She wanted to say, to scream that it couldn’t. But she didn’t _know,_ did she? Shiro, taking in her expression, nodded.

“I think we need to treat your magic as if it _can_ be overstressed,” he declared. “There’s still so much we don’t know about it, best to play it safe. That means fewer of those combat simulations you think I don’t know you’re doing. One scenario per day, that’s it.”

“Ehhhh?” Nanoha exclaimed, though whether it was at the restriction or being caught out wasn’t clear.

“And we should sit down soon and work out at least a rough idea of how your magic works, physiologically.”

Downcast, Nanoha nodded.

The awkward silence that ensued lasted for only a few seconds before Miyuki clapped her hands and declared, “Okay, enough of the serious stuff! You guys gotta hear what Saori over in Class B did over the weekend, it’s a hoot!”

~o~

As promised, Nanoha had cut down the simulations to one a day. A couple hours of meditation, experimentation, scanning, and conversation with Raising Heart revealed that yes, magical ability had a physical source. Probably. Without deep medical scans Raising Heart couldn’t do, the information they had was limited. Regardless, it meant that the young mage was quite motivated to not overstress her magic and potentially lose it, as Shiro had emphasized could happen with stress injuries.

After all, magic was awesome! Raising Heart was teaching her all sorts of cool spells on top of sealing and barriers! Magical handcuffs! _Giant pink laser beams!_ She could _fly!_ Flying was, frankly, her new favorite pastime, and often her breaks just saw her go out flying around. No, she did _not_ want to lose that ability.

Sadly, more normal breaks often ended up with Nanoha running into a Jewel Seed anyway. Like the one she’d had to seal during their hot springs trip in the middle of the night, or the one that one of Suzuka’s cats had gotten a hold of during a visit to her house.

~o~

Nanoha slowly floated down through the trees surrounding Suzuka’s mansion home, the little grey kitten that had been the size of a truck mere seconds before now nestled happily in her arms. Below, Suzuka and Arisa, drawn by the flashes of pink light, watched her descent with open mouths. Internally, Nanoha winced. She’d meant to tell her friends about this whole magic business and her search for the Jewel Seeds the day after the first battle, but she’d been so busy, and there never seemed to be a good moment to share until now, and then the Jewel Seed had activated before she could bring it up…

Well, they knew now. And hopefully Arisa would be too awed to question the timing.

“That… was… so cool!” Arisa gushed, eyes shining, as Nanoha touched down. “You were out there, and you were flying, and then you wrapped the kitten up in those pink ribbons and it shrank and-!”

“Breathe, Arisa,” Nanoha interrupted, before handing off the kitten in her arms to Suzuka. Arisa took deep gulping breaths while their purple-haired friend examined the feline.

“She’s okay,” Suzuka reported shortly.

“Great, then we can go back to gushing about Nanoha is a real-life magical girl!” Arisa interjected, grabbing Nanoha by the arm. “C’mon, let’s get inside and you can tell us all about it! Do you have a cute mascot? Who are the bad guys?”

“Nyahahahaha…” Nanoha chuckled nervously as she allowed herself to be pulled along. “Well, there are these things called Jewel Seeds…”

~o~

In the end, Arisa _didn’t_ think to question the timing. Not during the playdate, and not afterward even when her fangirling cooled. Suzuka did – but also accepted her explanation of being busy. With that, Nanoha could confide in everything to her friends, friends who also took immediate ownership in helping Nanoha relax sometime.

So overall, despite how busy she was, life was pretty good. Of her new routine, she only disliked one part of it, and that was the live sparring with her father. Not learning how to use a staff, that was fun. But the sparring always, _always_ ended with her eating a bonk to her forehead from Shiro’s shinai. By about three weeks in, she was getting frustrated at her own apparent lack of progress.

Let it never be said that Nanoha Takamachi wasn’t her own worst critic.

~o~

Bonk!

“Hau!”

Nanoha, floating in mid-air, reached up to rub at her forehead where Shiro’s shinai had hit. She despondently floated down to the floor and dismissed Raising Heart from her active mode. While she didn’t have specific times to compare, the young mage knew she’d done worse that day than the previous session. And it was all on her.

“Nanoha?” Shiro prompted as he finished putting his shinai back on the wall. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You were tagged sooner than you were in our last session,” Shiro pointed out. “And now you’re sulking.”

“I am not!” Nanoha protested.

The knowing smile her father gave her said he wasn’t fooled. “As your father and as your instructor, that tells me something’s wrong. So…”

Frustration bubbled up in her, and the words spilled out. “Because it’s unfair! The dojo’s too small for me to fly properly, I can’t use Divine Buster without putting a hole in the wall, and I have to be super extra careful with Divine Shooter, and-and-and it’s not fair that it’s one hit and it’s over because I can take these hits and-“ Panting, Nanoha slumped into a kneeling position. “And I can’t beat you.”

Sighing through his nose, Shiro sat down in front of her. “You’re right, it’s not fair,” he said, getting a look of surprise from his daughter. “That’s the point. I have no doubt in an actual fight, you could fly rings around me and blast me into submission. But I also have no doubt that you and Raising Heart can get better at that on your own. We’re sparring so you develop skills for when that skill set doesn’t work. So you know how to trap and lead an opponent, and pin them in place.”

He smiled. “And you _are_ getting better, Nanoha, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. I’m sure you’ll leave me in the dust soon. Now, I’m assuming because you were frustrated, you tried to force things?” A nod. “As you’ve noticed, that doesn’t work. Take it patiently, and it’ll come.”

Nanoha nodded, calmer.

“Now,” Shiro said, dusting his pants off. “As a reward for sitting and listening to me lecture, why don’t we go and see if we can convince your mother to part with some fresh pastries?”

“Pastries!” Nanoha cried happily, running into the house. Chuckling, Shiro followed her at a more sedate pace.

~o~

Now, fifteen Seeds into the search, Nanoha was at least able to get the occasional win in. And she and Raising Heart were working on a new spell that should help tilt things more in her favor.

Unfortunately, she’d also run into a brick wall trying to find the remaining six Jewel Seeds. For all the power they held, when deactivated they were mostly just pretty magical rocks, and so almost invisible to passive sensor spells. Most of the Seeds Nanoha had found, she’d found while they were activated and very visible indeed. Thank goodness for phase barriers shunting herself and the Seed monsters out of step with the rest of reality. Some of those fights had gotten hairy and would’ve resulted in considerable collateral damage otherwise.

Anyway, the remaining six hadn’t activated, so Nanoha had started systematically combing the Uminari region by air with her Area Search spell. Even with Shiro writing up a search pattern for her to follow, it was slow, tedious work, and produced absolutely no results. That left only two possibilities.

“Well, they’re either out in the ocean or on land outside of Uminari somewhere,” Miyuki decided the day Nanoha finished mapping the whole area. She tapped a map of every Jewel Seed location the family had put up on the wall, each sealing marked with a pin. “And the only Seed that’s come down outside the city limits is the one at the hot springs. Which makes the ocean the more likely option, and the one that’s easier to search because you can safely prod them.”

“Right,” Nanoha nodded. “Then I’ll give it a try tomorrow! Hopefully I’ll find them and have this all wrapped up by dinner.”

Miyuki nodded in return, before a thoughtful look crossed her face. “Hey, Nanoha, what are we going to do with the Seeds when you’ve sealed them all?”

A shrug. “Raising Heart’s been able to keep them quiet so far. We’ll just have to keep them where they are.”

“Comforting…” Miyuki muttered.

“Nanoha, Miyuki, dinner’s ready!” came Momoko’s voice from the recently-repaired kitchen.

“Yay!” Nanoha cheered, running out of the room. Miyuki followed, shaking her head at how adorable her sister was and how that contrasted with the amount of firepower she could carry around.

~o~

The next day, after school ended, Nanoha bade goodbye to Arisa and Suzuka and took to the air, flying out over the sea bordering Uminari. A gray blanket hung low over the city, but Nanoha’s mood wasn’t dampened. Cloudy or sunny, flying was just too much fun for her to care about the weather.

About a mile offshore, Nanoha came to a halt a hundred feet over the water and cast Area Search, the pink spheres the spell produced diving into the water and spreading out. As the spell was automated, Nanoha took off at maximum acceleration, skimming the wavetops. The flight very quickly became a test of how quick she could bank and turn – which was very quick indeed – and how low she could fly. Despite the spray in her face from the waves Nanoha laughed in delight the whole time.

Alas, all too soon Raising Heart interrupted with news. _“Wide Area Search complete. Marking locations.”_

Sighing a little in disappointment, Nanoha pulled up to properly check the locations, given by her own connection to the spheres of Area Search. The results were… not great. 

“They’re all in one spot?!” she yelped. “Nn… at least they’re all inert.”

But not likely to stay that way for long if she just carelessly attempted to seal one (sealing all six at once was _right out)._ Much experience sealing the Seeds had taught her that they reacted to both intent and lots of magic – and the spillover from a sealing spell qualified for both.

Nanoha flew over the spot on the water where the Jewel Seeds were, and took a deep breath. She let it out, and aimed her device as she switched to her winged Sealing Mode. “Alright, Raising Heart, let’s seal them!”

_“Yes, Master.”_

The pink ribbons of the sealing spell slithered out of Raising Heart and into the water. Down, down they went, until they reached the bottom and could very carefully wrap around a single Seed on the outskirts of the small cluster. Slowly, her face a rictus of concentration, Nanoha carefully began to pull the Seed back. It took all of her concentration to minimize mana leak and thus any chances of a chain activation.

It thus took a few minutes to pull the Seed all the way up, and the second it breached the surface she hastily pulled it into Raising Heart’s storage.

_“Jewel Seed V sealed.”_

Breathing a sigh of relief, Nanoha slumped over in mid-air, panting. She reached up to wipe sweat from her brow, a product of the intense concentration that the sealing had required. It took her a few more minutes of rest to muster up the mental energy to try for another sealing.

That second sealing was conducted without incident. Another break, a third seed, and things finally went wrong: for a bare instant, Nanoha’s concentration slipped and some of the energy of the spell leaked out. This energy touched on a neighboring Jewel Seed, and it immediately activated. Throwing caution to the wind, the young mage hastily sealed that third Seed as the energy from the activated one triggered the other two.

While three activated Seeds at once was a great deal more manageable than six, it still wasn’t an _easy_ job. This was very quickly proved when Nanoha had to hastily backpedal from a spread of _waterspouts_ kicked up by the Jewel Seeds.

“Yeep! Raising Heart, Restrict Lock!”

_“Yes, Master.”_

Drawing magic from her core, Nanoha mentally designated the area of the waterspouts. After a moment to calculate their erratic movements, she pulled the mental trigger.

Rings of pink light sprang shut around each waterspout, locking them in place despite extensive thrashing. That was about the worst thing they could have done; Restrict Lock maintained itself from mana in the environment, so every bit of struggle just strengthened the bonds. And it was watching that process that gave Nanoha an idea of how to finish this fight.

“Raising Heart! Let’s try our new spell!” she declared.

 _“Let’s do it!”_ the Device eagerly agreed, shifting its head into the two golden prongs of Shooting Mode. A pink circle sprung up under Nanoha’s feet, and then another, larger one in front, behind which motes of pink light gathered into a steadily growing ball. Much like Restrict Lock, the new spell drew its power from ambient magic in the environment, and worked best after a long battle.

Three rampaging Jewel Seeds also did the trick.

“Starlight! Breaker!” Nanoha declared.

The ball condensed, and then fired in a ravening beam the size of a tree trunk. The water offered no resistance, and the beam slammed through and annihilated the section of seawater the Jewel Seeds were controlling. It continued on and slammed into the seabed where the Jewel Seeds lay as well, blossoming into a pink explosion that threw up a small mushroom cloud of water. While the cloud came down, Nanoha warily watched for any sign of activity. Once she was sure that there wouldn’t be any more activity she sealed the Jewel Seeds with no further fuss.

“That’s all twenty-one,” Nanoha said happily. “Let’s go home, Raising Heart. I can’t wait to see what Mama cooked tonight!”

~o~

As Nanoha flew home, she was blissfully unaware of one particular unforeseen consequence. That night, the energy funneled into the sky by the waterspouts merged with the typhoon remnant that had caused the overcast day to form a nasty, wind-heavy thunderstorm. Uminari woke the next morning to several downed trees and powerlines, and scattered lightning damage. Minor for a city in a country regularly battered by typhoons.

One specific house had seen a tree fall into it, smashing apart several rooms, including the lone inhabitant’s bedroom. Well, what _had_ been the lone inhabitant. The fire crew that stopped by to assess things didn’t comment on the four oddly-dressed foreigners that accompanied her to the curb. The resident said they were relatives visiting from overseas and the crew simply assumed the clothes were sleepwear of some kind. That was that, as far as they were concerned.

“That’s your room there, miss?” the chief said, whistling as he eyed the massive limb smashed into the room in question. “You’re darn lucky you weren’t hurt, then.”

“Y-Yes, lucky…” Hayate Yagami chuckled nervously.

“Anyway, I need to go supervise while they cut up that tree. Take care of yourself, okay, miss?”

“I will!”

As the crew went to work cutting up the tree, Hayate wheeled herself back into her house, her new guests trailing behind like bodyguards. As she crossed the threshold, a book bound in dark leather with a pointed golden cross on the cover floated up to her. She grasped it and looked it over, pondering the mystery of why it was, well, floating. How it had put up an energy barrier to save her from the limb that crashed into her room. What it had to do with her four new houseguests.

But all that was secondary to a far more important concern. “So, who wants breakfast?” she cheerily asked.


	4. Chapter 4

Chrono Harlaown could feel a headache coming on. The twenty-one Jewel Seeds had been sealed, and that was a good thing – but they’d been sealed in a _Device_ rather than a proper containment facility and at least two had somehow gotten out. What a situation. He looked up and down Takamachi. To seal all twenty-one with minimal incident as a complete novice… that spoke to not only power but innate talent and skill. _Scary_ levels of both, frankly, and this completely naturally.

“I don’t like to brag, but I like to think I did a good job with the Jewel Seeds,” Takamachi was saying. Chrono shook himself out of his thoughts. “Nobody died and only a few people got hurt, after all.”

“Y-Yes, a very good job,” Chrono got out, strangled. Behind him, Chrono could feel his Enforcers choking on their own tongues.

Thankfully, this was when the tea arrived. Everyone helped themselves to a cup, Chrono adding a dash of cream and two sugarcubes to his cup. His mother, Admiral Lindy Harlaown, had introduced him to the drink – and to the outright sacrilege he had just committed to perfectly innocent green tea. A completely scandalized expression crossed Takamachi’s face, though by the time Chrono finished stirring his tea it was hidden by her cup.

“So, where are the Seeds now?” Chrono prompted. “Please tell me they’re not still sealed up in your device.”

“Oh, definitely not!” Takamachi answered, aghast. “I’m sure you’ve picked up the ones we’re using for active power generation. Thirteen are sealed up in the Castle, and the remaining six at a site Earthside. We check that one periodically; haven’t had to shore it up so far, but you can’t be too safe with Jewel Seeds.”

Well, that was better than he’d feared. Chrono didn’t know what measures the castle had, but putting dangerous Lost Logia in orbit away from the planet was a sound idea. Unlikely to help much, but sound.

“Not bad. But we should probably take the sealed ones into custody ASAP,” Chrono decided. “The one in your device and the one power the… castle can be negotiated at a later date, I think.”

“Nyahahahaha…”

It was only the second time he’d heard that nervous laugh, but its reappearance still sent his heart plummeting into his shoes. Perhaps it was his greater knowledge of Takamachi’s abilities, and thus what exactly it took to make her _nervous,_ that provoked the feeling _._

“What?” he very carefully did not demand.

“We… kinda need those Earthside Seeds where they are,” Takamachi explained, sheepish. “You mentioned the Book of Darkness? Well… five of those Seeds are keeping it sealed.”

Chrono’s brain seized up at this, unable to decide whether to focus on the fact that the Book was sealed, that it was sealed by five Jewel Seeds, or the terrifying implication that the Book had _gotten a hold of one of the Seeds._ In the end, it defaulted to a strangle squawk of _“What?!”_

~o~

Hayate Yagami hummed to herself as she tossed onions into a pan with oil, the sizzle drawing a smile from her. A little further down the kitchen, Shamal was busy chopping up some more vegetables, one of the few kitchen tasks she was trusted to do. The six months since the Wolkenritter had appeared out of nowhere had been easily the happiest of her life. The young girl wasn’t stupid; she had watched them gradually unthaw and knew they had suffered greatly in the past, but now they were out of their shells and enjoying life. And nothing could make her more happy.

Hayate herself had settled in as the head of the household. She cooked, directed house chores, and initiated most activities, though Vita was becoming more independent in that regard. The Wolkenritter deferred to her and their Master ruthlessly took advantage of that to enforce a good deal of normalcy.

Case in point, Signum walking in through the front door, clad in a maroon sweatsuit and her light panting and thin sheen of sweat speaking of a few hours of jogging. Signum had probably had the hardest time adjusting to normal life, and a few months ago, the pink-haired woman would’ve never so much as left Hayate’s side for that long. Progress.

“Welcome back, Signum!” Hayate called out. “We were just getting started on lunch. Stir-fried yakisoba this time!”

“Sounds delicious, Hayate,” Signum replied. “Are Vita and Zafira-?”

“They’re out in the park again. They should be back soon.”

Nodding, Signum padded off to take a shower. Smiling, Hayate leaned over the pan and gave the onions a sniff; yes, it was about time.

“Shamal, if you’re done could you pour the vegetables into the pan?” she asked as she wheeled over to the fridge. “Just give them a few stirs, it won’t take me long to get the noodles.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Shamal cheerily replied, saluting.

Chuckling, Hayate opened up the fridge and retrieved the package of noodles – and then heard the fwoosh of igniting oil and a yelp of surprise. She turned around to find the pan _on fire_ and Shamal panicking _._

“Cover it, Shamal, cover it!” Hayate ordered, sending the blonde scurrying for a pan lid. She sighed. How Shamal managed to set everything she tried to actually cook on fire was beyond her.

~o~

It was a scene familiar to city parks all over the world: a young girl, about nine or ten, her red hair in a pair of cute braids running around with the neighborhood kids. Or rather, playing the monster and pretend-terrorizing them. From the heavy stomps, clawed arms, and occasional reptilian screeches, it was some sort of dinosaur. On a nearby bench was a tanned, muscular man with a shock of spiky white hair that most would’ve taken for a relative, or a babysitter. Though his attention was relaxed and seemed affixed on the book he was reading, he occasionally glanced up to see that his charge wasn’t going overboard. An observer willing to wait, though, would’ve noted that he hadn’t turned a page in fifteen minutes.

Finally, at some unseen signal, the man closed his book and stood. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called out, “Vita! Time to go!”

The redheaded girl, Vita, froze mid-stomp, glancing at the man. Putting her foot back down, she turned back to the kids, expression apologetic. “Sorry, kids, looks like today’s game of Gojira is over.”

“Aww!” the children all chorused. “Will you play it with us again?” one black-haired girl asked.

“Of course!” Vita replied, all sunny smiles. “But for now, I gotta go! Bye-bye!”

Despite many protests, Vita jogged up to the man and followed him out of the park. For a few blocks, the two just walked, silent, Vita with her hands behind her head and a pleased smile on her face, the man with his arms relaxed and swaying at his side. Then…

“Have fun?” he prompted.

“Yup! It’s nice to just be childish for a while. Also, we gotta see if Hayate knows how to get those Gojira movies, they sound fun,” Vita replied. Abruptly, her smile vanished. “So. Did you pinpoint that mana source, Zafira?”

“I did,” Zafira said. “I can track it now wherever it goes.”

“Good.” So saying, Vita punched her fist into her palm. “Pretty slim pickings lately. It’ll be nice to get some pages.”

“And maybe a good fight?” the man prompted, one eyebrow raised.

Vita chuckled mirthlessly. “Yeah, I’ll cop to that. Haven’t had a decent fight since showing up here. That’s mostly a good thing, but…”

She trailed off, and Zafira nodded.

“Now!” Vita said, running forward with a smile on her face again. “Let’s go see what Hayate’s cooked for lunch this time!”

~o~

“98… 99… 100!”

A ball of pink light smacked an empty soda can into the air one last time. It arced, coming down quickly-

And clattered into the trash can Nanoha had kinda sorta been aiming it at.

“Yes! Bonus!” Nanoha cheered, jumping up with her fist pumped in the air.

 _“Good work, my Master,”_ Raising Heart chimed.

It was six months after the Jewel Seeds had been safely sealed, and life had gotten back to normal for Nanoha. She still trained with her father Shiro, but with no need to drop everything and go seal Jewel Seeds at random hours of the day her grades and free time had both gone up. She’d taken the opportunity to put more time into magic practice, careful to confine her training to those times.

Her current exercise was one she had used for a few months now: summon a ball of magic – _without_ Raising Heart’s help, mind – and use it to bounce a can in mid-air. Simple, but it was excellent control practice. When she’d first tried it, she’d only managed five bounces. Now she’d done a hundred, and dunked the can! Maybe two shots at once next time…?

Her phone trilled in her pocket. Fishing it out, she answered, “Hello?”

“Nanoha! How was magic practice?” her mother Momoko asked, cheerful but a little strained. A hubbub of voices chattered in the background.

“It went great!” Nanoha replied. “I finally reached my goal of a hundred reps!”

“Good, that’s good! Listen, Nanoha, we’ve gotten a rush at the bakery. Dinner’s going to have to be a bit late, I think.”

“That’s fine, I wanted to do some flying before dinner anyway,” Nanoha replied. “Good luck, Mama!”

“Thanks, Nanoha, I- hey, take your hands out of-!”

The call abruptly died, and Nanoha chuckled at the antics no doubt ongoing at the family bakery Midori-ya. Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out Raising Heart and held the inactive device up to eye level. “Let’s go, Raising Heart.”

_“Stand by, ready.”_

In a flash of light, Nanoha’s magical dress wrapped around her, Raising Heart’s staff form settling comfortably in her left hand. The wings of Flier Fin sprouted at her ankles, and lifted her up into the sky.

~o~

Downtown Uminari. The red light of the setting sun mingled with the headlights of the cars streaming out of the city’s offices to bathe them in an orange glow. Vita sat against an air-conditioning unit atop one of the skyscrapers, watching the city bustle below. She wore an intense look of concentration, her expression grim, but her whole body was relaxed. Her t-shirt and denim skirt from the park had been replaced by a red dress and a red hat with two rabbit heads on it. A gift, from Hayate.

Her fists clenched. All of this was for Hayate, who had shown them such kindness.

 _“Vita. The target approaches,”_ Zafira rumbled.

At the telepathic voice, she stood, looking north to where the suburbs sprawled away. A pink glow could be seen silhouetted against the darkening sky.

“Yeah, I can tell. She’s a goddamn pink beacon.”

 _“Remember, Vita, you_ must _collect her mana. We’ve-“_

“Had absolutely no fucking luck getting any, yeah, I know,” Vita interrupted. “I can check the Book too, Zafira. We don’t have many pages filled.” She sighed. “Still don’t like attacking a _person._ It was one thing when we were just draining animals…”

Silence. And then…

_“I know. And I agree. But Hayate comes first.”_

Vita sighed and ran a hand up her forehead. “Definitely.” Reaching to her chest, she grasped a hammer-shaped pendant and it expanded into a hammer resembling a metallic croquet mallet. “Sorry, whoever you are, but you’re going _down.”_

The pink glow grew closer, then descended to another rooftop and winked out.

“She’s grounded,” Vita reported, taking off. “I’m going in.”

 _“Barrier coming up.”_ The sky washed out into a mottled purple. _“You’re free to attack, Vita.”_

Vita grinned. _“Finally.”_

~o~

Nanoha touched down on a skyscraper in downtown Uminari and dispelled her magic. She walked over to the edge of the building, taking in the view. It was spectacular, showing off the glittering buildings and the flow of the car and foot traffic below. This was one of her favorite spots, and one she’d visited many times. The young mage leaned onto her elbows on the concrete ledge. Just taking in the sights and sounds.

However, the quiet moment was shattered by purple creeping across the sky, washing out the color of the surrounding cityscape. “A phase barrier!” Nanoha gasped, quickly transforming and throwing up a wide-area shield.

A good thing, too, because it had barely gone up when a red meteor fell out of the sky and slammed… hammer-first into it? Regardless, the barrier only held up briefly, but reflex kicked in and Nanoha was already rolling out of the way. She hit her feet and took the air, eye and magic taking in her assailant.

It was a redheaded girl about her age, wielding a gleaming hammer and clad all in red. And Nanoha did not like the look of focused violence in her expression.

“Why are you attacking me?” Nanoha shouted.

Her assailant didn’t answer, rocketing up again. Nanoha banked to her left and quickly cast a spread of Divine Shooter. The red warrior, who had turned taken off in chase, spun her body and hammer around, batting aside the orbs. What looked like steel ball bearings appeared in her hand, and she tossed them into the air and smashed them with her hammer right at Nanoha.

They came in erratic trajectories, but Nanoha had already been zig-zagging and the ones that didn’t miss were caught on a Round Shield. In return, her assailant had to deal with the Divine Shooter bolts coming back around for another pass – which she did by casting a barrier of her own. More Divine Shooter bolts followed in an attempt to box in the enemy mage, but they were met by more steel balls in a burst of pink smoke.

“Seriously, why are you attacking me?” Nanoha shouted in the lull that followed. “I don’t understand!”

“Just stand still so I can smash your face in!” the hammer-wielding maniac shouted in response, firing off more steel balls.

They were met by more Divine Shooter bolts, and Nanoha braced for another melee attack. Naturally, her assailant blurred from sight. _‘Flash Move!’_ she realized, throwing up a Round Shield and rapid-casting Restrict Lock. The shield blocked the hammer strike, but the bind wasn’t so successful, only grabbing the wrist of her opponent’s hammer arm. And she destroyed the binding with alarming speed.

It did, thankfully, allow Nanoha to gain some distance to try a new gambit. She fired off Divine Shooter to attract attention. It worked; the enemy mage evaded and sped towards her, Nanoha turning around and turning it into a stern chase. The steel balls didn’t come immediately, so the young mage waited… and waited…

CLANG!

At the sound of more steel balls being fired, Nanoha blurred from sight herself, reappearing in front of her surprised opponent with Raising Heart reared back. “Flash Impact!” she declared, swinging.

Somehow, the enemy mage shifted the shaft of her hammer _just_ enough to catch Raising Heart on it. Still, the explosion of mana at least forced her back, and Nanoha quickly switched to Shooting mode, and charged up and fired an admittedly weak Divine Buster.

The look of surprise on her assailant’s face just before it hit was _priceless._

SHCHOOM!

Nanoha paused, watching, and her assailant came out of the resulting cloud of smoke a second later. Sadly, little damage had been done, though her hat had gotten blasted off and was floating to the ground, scorched.

“You… knocked off my hat,” the enemy mage breathed. Nanoha’s stomach dropped down to her shoes at the half-despondent, half- _furious_ tone. “You _damaged_ my hat.” She looked up, her expression positively murderous. “Graf Eisen, load cartridge.”

_“Jawohl.”_

With the pounding of an industrial piston, the hammer rammed what looked like a bullet in a central, handle-mounted revolver chamber. With a surge of energy, the hammer changed shape, one end becoming a pointed wedge and the other sprouting nozzles for what looked like either rockets or jets. Nanoha, sensing the obvious danger, began to backpedal.

_“Racketenform.”_

Too late.

With a roar of “YOU! HURT! MY! HAT!”, the hammer’s rocket motor ignited and spun the enemy mage at Nanoha with incredible speed. There was no time to shoot, no time to throw up a shield, not even any time to dodge. Nanoha only barely got Raising Heart’s shaft up enough to deflect the point away from a direct hit to her chest. But even a skidding blow still felt like she’d been hit by a car.

Screaming in shock and pain, Nanoha was flung into the nearest building, through the glass façade and into a cubicle. She came to a rest in a heap of paper and cubicle wall, groaning in pain. Her chest ached, her breath came in strained gasps, and Raising Heart’s shaft was visibly cracked. Worse, she heard a crunch of glass and looked up to find her assailant standing in the smashed window.

Struggling into a sitting position, Nanoha levelled Raising Heart at the girl. Sadly, her shaking arm took a lot away from the threat.

“W-Why-“ Nanoha gasped. “Why are you doing this?”

To her surprise, her attacked grimaced, before pulling out a strange book out of nowhere that veritably dripped magic. “Nothing personal, kid,” she said. “But I need your mana.”

What _that_ meant wasn’t entirely clear, except that it was _not_ a good thing. Nanoha tried to stand, cast a spell, _something!_ But with a cry of pain she simply collapsed, Raising Heart bounced off the ground – and something in their collective control slipped, ever so briefly. Raising Heart’s head glowed, and a Jewel Seed, thankfully still inactive, tumbled to the ground.

The enemy mage immediately recoiled, spitting out something in an unfamiliar language. That reaction, plus the mention of needing mana, gave Nanoha an idea.

“Wait!” she called out, hastily grabbing the Seed. “If you n-need mana…” She held up the Seed. “T-This is a battery. Kinda. I’m offering this to you-“

“In exchange for what?” the other mage sneered. “Your life?”

“No,” Nanoha replied, getting a look of genuine shock. “You won’t kill me. You don’t want to hurt anyone, do you? But you think you have to. Well, I want to know why! What’s so important that you have to attack people out of the blue?” As an afterthought, “Oh, and I want to make sure whatever your goal is isn’t dangerous.”

“And what’s stopping me from just taking them?” the mage asked.

“That I’m pretty sure that would cause the twenty other Jewel Seeds like this one to unseal and spill out?” A pause. “Which would be bad.”

The two stared at each other for a long moment before the enemy mage sighed and relaxed. “Yeah, that would be bad.” The redhead ran a hand through her hair, and then pointed out the window. “Alright. Okay, you know that coffee shop a block down? The fancy one with lots of wrought iron and lace?” Nanoha nodded, having flown by it a few times. “Okay, meet me and my… partner there at-“

“Three in the afternoon,” Nanoha offered. “I have school tomorrow.”

“Three in the afternoon, right. Anyway, meet us there and we’ll work out an exchange. The barrier should be down soon; you can leave then.” The mage turned and took a step out the broken window. She stopped in the frame, stayed still for a second, and turned around. “By the way, my name’s Vita. What’s yours?”

“Nanoha Takamachi,” Nanoha declared with all the dignity she could muster.

Dignity that was sorely deflated by the response she got.

“Well fought, Nantoka Takamichi. We should spar again sometime.”

Vita promptly took off out the window before a sputtering, incredulous Nanoha could shout a correction for her name.

“It’s Nanoha! Na-No-Ha!”

Grumbling under her breath, Nanoha slumped down onto the wreckage and heaved a sigh of relief. A sigh of relief that quickly turned into hyperventilating. She hastily re-sealed the Jewel Seed and then levered herself to her feet to find a paper bag.

~o~

“Zafira, lower the barrier,” Vita ordered as soon as she got some distance.

She was met with silence. Silence that stretched on until just before she was going to snap back.

_“Are you sure this is a good idea?”_

“This could fill the rest of the damn Book without hurting anyone else!” Vita snapped back. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of lying to Hayate about how we’re _disobeying_ the one order she’s given! If we can end this in a few _days_ instead of a few months, yeah, I’m going to take a risk!”

Vita glanced up; the barrier was still up. Gritting her teeth, she landed on a nearby building.

“And if this doesn’t work, I already beat her myself. With the two of us, we can just go back to Plan A, beat her up, and take one of those gems ourselves.”

 _“You’ve made your point,”_ Zafira replied. Out the corner of her eye, the barrier could be seen receding. _“I’ll go along with this plan. But_ you’re _explaining it to Signum.”_

Vita gulped, suddenly a lot less confident in her plan. “Yeah, that’s fair.” Swallowing audibly, she tried to push down the sudden bout of nerves, and actually mostly succeeded. Getting into the air again helped. “Anyway, what’s Hayate cooking for dinner tonight?” she asked, a little eager.

_“I believe this dish is called ‘katsudon’…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we move onto the events of A's with the Book of Darkness! As you can see, events are proceeding very differently already...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now things start to really go off the rails...

Sunlight and birdsong streamed through the open window of Nanoha’s bedroom. Her phone, set up as an alarm clock, buzzed incessantly. The bustle of her family going through their morning routine added a nice background layer. None of it mattered to the young girl, who was curled up in a blanket cocoon in her bed due to a combination of exhaustion and full-body soreness.

There was a knock at the door. After a few seconds, it opened, Kyouya poking his head in. “Nanoha, you need to get up _now_ or you’re going to be late for school,” he announced.

The only answer he got was a whining groan from his younger sister, who simply rolled over and stayed in bed. Huffing out a breath through his nose, Kyouya marched up to the bed, grabbed the entire blanket-and-Nanoha bundle, and carefully dumped it open onto the floor. Nanoha flopped onto the floor like a beached whale, still groaning in complaint.

“Onii-chan, you’re mean…”

After a few seconds it became clear that Nanoha wasn’t going to get up on her own. Sighing, Kyouya walked back into the hall and hollered down it, “Miyuki! Nanoha needs you to walk her through getting ready!”

“Coming!” came the reply. Miyuki, already dressed in her uniform and ready to go but for breakfast, arrived shortly, poking her head in and taking in the situation. When she drew back, she had worry etched all over her features, worry Kyouya matched.

“This isn’t from overdoing it in training,” she said more than asked.

“I mean, it _could_ be,” Kyouya pointed out. “But even if it is we need to know what’s going on.”

“Right. I’ll get Nanoha ready and out the door, you go tell Mom and Dad. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if Dad already noticed last night.”

Kyouya didn’t say anything as he headed back downstairs. It wouldn’t surprise him, either.

~o~

Nanoha, her head buried in her arms on her desk, groaned in raw soreness. After limping back home, she’d dispelled her magical costume before heading inside, hoping to hide the damage it – and she – had taken. The pain in her chest couldn’t be hidden, but explaining that she’d overdone it in practice seemed to have been enough.

Now, however, she wasn’t so sure about that. Waking up a pained lump of jelly wasn’t something her family was going to ignore, not after her siblings had been forced to walk her through her morning routine. Nanoha figured she had until tonight before her parents sat her down and asked what the heck had happened. Hopefully, with the meeting with Vita set up for later in the day, she’d have some actual answers beyond “This crazy red girl with a hammer attacked me.”

Of course, that raised the problem of how she was going to keep it together long enough to get through the meeting. A hot shower and an extra-sugary breakfast had let Nanoha feel human again, but at this point, one class before lunch, the rejuvenative effects of both had long worn off. So back to a groaning lump of jelly it was.

“Jeez, Nanoha, you sound like you’re dying,” Arisa remarked.

Nanoha briefly debated whether to tell her friends what had happened last night. She very quickly decided that she needed someone to complain to.

Peeking her eyes above her arms, she said, deadpan, “I got ambushed last night by a girl our age in a red dress swinging around a magical croquet mallet. That turns into a rocket hammer.”

Arisa blinked. So did Suzuka, up to now quiet. Finally…

“I’m gonna guess you got your butt kicked,” Arisa prompted.

“All over downtown,” Nanoha replied, sinking back down.

Arisa mulled that over before grinning eagerly. “So, time for a cool training montage so you can get good enough to win the rematch?” she asked, punching the air.

Bleary eyes peeked up over Nanoha’s arms. “No. I’m going to talk to her and try to work this out without any fighting. Like a _normal_ person.”

“Good,” Suzuku said firmly, side-eyeing Arisa as she did so.

“What?!” came the defensive reply.

“Anyway-“

“What?! What’d I say?!”

Suzuka shushed her blonde friend before continuing. “When the negotiation goes well, I’d like to introduce you to a new friend of mine. Her name’s Hayate Yagami, I met her at the library yesterday.”

“Don’t I get an invitation?” Arisa sullenly asked.

“Once I’m sure you won’t bother her relative Signum. She’s very intense.”

Arisa threw up her hands and shut up, while Nanoha tried to leap up and hug her friend for having so much faith in her. Unfortunately, her muscles weren’t cooperating, so she settled for a heartfelt, “Thanks, Suzuka. I’ll be there!”

~o~

Though Nanoha didn’t feel any better after school, she grit her teeth and flew downtown to meet Vita. Thank goodness for Raising Heart’s robust auto-repair system; the Device was already “combat ready”, as she’d put it. Anyway, the young mage had no trouble finding the café, spotting Vita sitting with a tall, dark-skinned and muscular man with blue hair at one of the outdoor tables. The two were already nursing steaming cups and, in Vita’s case, a slice of cake.

The mage all but flopped into a chair, groaning openly. To her satisfaction, an embarrassed expression flashed across Vita’s face.

“Ugh, I did _not_ think this through…” she muttered. “Zafira, can you heal her enough to actually sit upright?” A nod from the blue-haired man. “Okay, Nantoka-“

“It’s Nanoha. Na-No-Ha,” Nanoha mumbled out.

“… Right. Nanoha, does Zafira have permission to use a healing spell on you?”

“Please,” Nanoha moaned.

“Physical Heal.”

Magic washed over Nanoha, sweeping away the soreness. She immediately perked up, and all but threw herself across the table, pinning Zafira with an acquisitive stare. He flinched back. “How can I learn that?” she demanded.

“Sit down, Cannon Girl,” Vita said to some sputtering from Nanoha. “You learn that only if this deal actually works.”

Pouting, arms crossed, Nanoha flopped back into her chair. After a moment, she asked, “Is the cake good?”

“Super sweet, I love it,” Vita crooned, carefully carving off another piece of cake and sticking it in her mouth.

Something in her face must have looked longing, because Zafira flagged down a waiter. “Waiter,” he told one of the men in suits. “Another slice of the chocolate ganache, and…”

“Uh, just a cup of green tea,” Nanoha told the waiter. Nodding, he scribbled the order down and left, leaving the young mage shifting nervously. Once he was gone, she blurted out, “Um, who’s paying for this?”

“I am,” Zafira rumbled. “Our Master gave us the money when we told her we were meeting a friend.”

“Our Master is great,” Vita added, before taking another bit of cake. “And we weren’t _technically_ lying.” Grimacing, the redhead dropped her fork on her plate with a loud clatter. “I’m frankly sick of even _that_ , let alone the straight lies. That’s why Zafira and I are here: we want to finish our mission so we don’t have to keep lying to-“ Her mouth abruptly clamped shut.

Let it not be said that Nanoha couldn’t read between the lines. “She didn’t order you to collect mana, did she.”

Vita looked away, shamefaced. Zafira’s stoic expression didn’t change, but he did sigh explosively out his nose.

“What do you know of the Book of Darkness?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing!”

Zafira nodded, as if he’d expected the answer. He leaned back, seemingly unconsciously, the weight of a storyteller settling over him.

“The Book is… a record. A record of spells. Of magic. And don’t ask about its origins,” he added at the curious look on Nanoha’s face. “That answer is long lost to us. Anyway, it bonds with a master, and in exchange for the power to wield all the spells within, the Book must be filled with magic. In practice, this means the Linker Cores of other magical beings.”

Nanoha tilted her head. “What’s a Linker Core?”

“You don’t even know _that?”_ Vita asked, bewildered. “Sankt Kaiser, now I’m even more glad I didn’t take yours.

“The Linker Core is a magical organ that is the source of a mage’s power,” Zafira smoothly explained. The precise metaphysical origins of the Linker Core are-“

“You were gonna take my magic?!” Nanoha abruptly shouted at Vita.

“You’re young, you would’ve recovered!” A pause. “Probably.”

_“Probably?!”_

_“Ahem.”_

Nanoha, out of her seat and leaning aggressively at Vita, froze. So did Vita as well.

“Children,” Zafira intoned, somehow managing to loom while still seated. “Sit down and stop making a scene.”

Chastened, Nanoha sat down again. The waiter picked this moment to return with her cake and tea, and she took the distraction in the form of a bite.

“Where was I?” Zafira mused. “Ah, yes, our role in this. We – that is, Vita, myself, and two others – are artificial constructs stored in the Book and awakened to act as the guardians of the current Master.”

“The whole person thing’s kind of new, by the way,” Vita added while Nanoha gaped.

“Yes. Previous Masters would treat us as tools,” Zafira continued, his voice still even. “To be used and discarded as they saw fit. Our Master… doesn’t see us that way. To her, we are people, and as such we are to be loved and cared for rather than used.” A smile quirked onto his lips. “It’s a… refreshing change.”

“He means we love her to death, he just won’t admit it,” Vita interjected, slugging Zafira on the arm. He glared at her, but otherwise didn’t react. “Anyway, when we brought up filling the Book she said no, and we _were_ totally on board with that.”

Nanoha, currently taking a sip of tea, frowned at the emphasis. “But not now. You’re filling the Book now, right?”

Both Vita and Zafira grimaced at that. “Yes. The Book seems… determined to fill itself. It is draining her own Linker Core.” The wolf-man’s fists clenched. “And it is _killing her.”_

Nanoha gasped, hands flying up to cover her mouth and tears shimmering in her eyes. Vita chuckled mirthlessly.

“Yeah, I bet you see why we’re disobeying her by filling the Book in secret. And why I attacked you.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry about that. Desperate, y’know?”

“I-It’s fine, I understand.” Sniffing, Nanoha wiped her eyes on her sleeve and fixed Vita and Zafira with a determined expression. “I’ll help!” she declared. “The Jewel Seeds should let you fill the Book up all at once. Though…” She looked around at the half-full café and pedestrians streaming past. “Not here.”

“I agree,” Zafira nodded. “Too risky. We’ll contact you when all four of us can make some time.”

“I’ll give you my cell phone number,” Nanoha agreed. Then she smiled. “Now, time for cake!”

In the end, the cake wasn’t as good as Midori-ya’s, but it was still very tasty. She and Vita finished up their tea and cake, swapped phone numbers, and Nanoha headed home in a very happy mood.

A mood that evaporated like a spring mist when she opened the door to find her parents both sitting expectantly at the dinner table.

“Nanoha, what happened last night,” Shiro said more than asked. “And no stories about overdoing it in training.”

She gulped.

~o~

_Two days later_

“So, so? How’d it go?” Arisa demanded as she and Nanoha walked to the Uminari Public Library to meet Suzuka and the mysterious Hayate Yagami. “You never got to tell us at lunch yesterday and you’ve been, like, grounded or something the last two days. Speaking of which, what’s _that_ about?”

“Nyahaha… I kinda held off on telling Mama and Papa about getting ambushed by Vita that first night,” Nanoha answered, rubbing the back of her head. “They grounded me for a few days for that. I’m just glad they accepted that I wanted more information before telling them.”

“On a first-name basis now, are we?” Arisa said with a cheeky grin, prompting her friend to blush. “IIIII’m gonna take a wild guess and say the meeting went well.”

“Oh, it went great! Everything was settled peacefully,” Nanoha replied, before sniffling. “Their story, though… it’s so sad!”

Arisa quirked an eyebrow. “How sad?”

“They… They’re artificial people made out of magic and they finally find a new master that doesn’t use them and treats them like people but now she’s dying so they have to go behind her back to try and save her!” Stream of consciousness done, Nanoha sniffed, hard, and rubbed her eyes.

Arisa wasn’t exactly dry-eyed herself, though she stoically tried not to show it. “Yeah… that’s pretty sad,” she managed to get out.

One short cry on a nearby bench later, Nanoha and Arisa resumed their trek and shortly arrived at the library. It took another fifteen minutes to find Suzuka, because _for some reason_ (as Arisa had muttered under her breath) their purple-haired friend was _not_ at the planned meeting spot, but instead upstairs in the reference section.

“There you are!” she declared once they found Suzuka, stomping toward her friend who blinked in surprise. “Do you know how long it took us to find you? We-!”

“You are disturbing the other patrons.”

The voice was tight, and disciplined, and both accurately described the pink-haired woman who emerged from around the bookshelf. Nanoha, after all her training with her father, knew what a trained warrior looked like. She was _definitely_ one.

She also knew the expression on Arisa’s face. Her friend opened her mouth – and Nanoha clamped a hand on her shoulder and gave her a very particular smile. Arisa paled and closed her mouth with an audible click.

“Nanoha, Arisa, this is Signum. She’s a relative of Hayate’s from overseas,” Suzuka introduced, either not noticing or not caring about the byplay between her two other friends.

“Pleased to meet you,” Signum said, bowing shallowly.

Nanoha and, with a bit of prodding, Arisa repeated the greeting. Wordlessly, Signum walked back around the corner, Suzuka following. After a moment’s hesitation, the two girls did the same.

“Suzuka was right, Signum’s _intense,”_ Arisa quietly commented as they walked down past the shelves.

Intense was one way to put it. Signum moved like Shiro, if Shiro wasn’t hampered by old injuries. Also, Nanoha could sense the magic coming off the woman. The outer layer was faint, but a very controlled sort of faint that screamed ‘suppression’. So did the deep well the young mage could feel just below the surface, too.

Nanoha resolved then and there to never fight Signum if she could help it.

Signum abruptly turned down another aisle, this one for arts and crafts, judging from the placard. Parked about halfway down was a brown-haired girl about their age in a wheelchair, a blonde woman hovering in mild anxiety next to her. Curiously, she relaxed when Signum came back into view.

“Hi, Hayate!” Suzuka said, leaning around Signum to give the brown-haired girl a wave. As if on cue, Signum shifted so she was parallel to the shelves. “These are my friends Nanoha and Arisa.”

“Nice to meet you,” said friends chorused.

“Likewise,” Hayate said. She indicated the blonde woman standing next to her, who now that Nanoha was paying attention was also radiating magic. “You’ve met Signum, and this is Shamal.” She giggled. It was a very pretty giggle. “Sorry, Suzuka. I tried to get Vita and Zafira to join us, but one mention of sewing and they couldn’t get out the door fast enough.”

Suzuka nodded, pouting. “It was just one time!”

No further elaboration came, something that had Arisa lean in conspiratorially and whisper, “That sounds like a _story._ Care to share?”

As Hayate launched into an amusing story involving a great deal of excited dress-up, Nanoha hung back, considering what she’d just learned. How many other Zafiras and Vitas could there be in Japan? _Hayate_ was the Book’s Master, had to be. Which made Signum and Shamal the two other guardians the two had mentioned.

She glanced over at Signum, and shivered at the considering stare the ponytailed woman gave her. Oh yeah. Signum knew exactly who she was. Nanoha shook her head. Well, she wasn’t planning on doing anything bad anyway, so it should be fine, right? Taking a deep breath, she walked up to the group and properly joined in.

Though Nanoha had already mentally decided that the Master of the Book of Darkness was a good person who deserved her help, meeting and getting to know Hayate dispelled any doubts. Despite her paralysis she was a sunny beam of optimism, greatly enjoyed coming up with elaborate costumes, and also had a mischievous streak.

Somehow, the conversation eventually turned to Nanoha’s magic, which she demonstrated by means of a discrete pink ball. A wide grin spread on Hayate’s face, and she’d announced, “Oh, oh, I can do magic, too! It’s not as flashy as those pink balls, but… lemme just show you.”

Closing her eyes, Hayate placed her fingers to her temples, and began frowning in concentration. After a moment, a yellow glow appeared on the handles of her wheelchair, much to Arisa and Suzuka’s delight. Slowly, she rolled down the aisle – and Nanoha glanced over to where Shamal stood, hand wrapped around a necklace she could see but was sure was a device. She turned back to Hayate, and caught a wink from the other girl. Ah. So that was what her role was.

Hayate reached the end of the aisle, turned around, and the glow faded, the girl mock-bowing. Arisa and Suzuka clapped – right as Nanoha turned to Shamal and said “Good control, Shamal!”

“Thank you,” Shamal replied.

Suzuka and Arisa stood, stunned mid-clap, for several seconds, before the blonde burst into laughter that she only barely suppressed to library-appropriate volumes.

“Okay,” she said once she calmed down. “That was pretty good, you got me.”

“That was mean!” Suzuka retorted.

“Yeah, but it was a harmless mean, lighten up.”

~o~

In all, when Nanoha got the text message from Vita a day later that they were ready, she felt very good about the situation. It took her some time to let her parents know what was going on and then fly out to the mountains surrounding Uminari, and by the time she got there all four guardians had already arrived. She audibly gulped at the sight of Signum in full armor, a sword at her hip, and Zafira looked properly intimidating with armored gauntlets and boots and a skintight outfit showing off his muscles. Oh, yeah, Shamal was there, too. At least she looked properly wizardly?

“Well met, Takamachi,” Signum said when Nanoha touched down. “I trust our Master met your expectations.”

“Hayate was a very nice person who I would love to get to know better as a _friend,”_ Nanoha replied.

To her surprise, Signum bowed her head at the tonal rebuke. “Apologies. I of all the Wolkenritter have had the hardest time… _adjusting_ to our new lifestyle.”

“Signum’s a total battle maniac,” Vita cut in, grinning. “Just so you know, she’s probably going to demand you spar with her at some points when we’re done here.”

“Vita!” Signum snapped, over a laugh from the hammer wielder and a whimper from Nanoha.

“If we could get started…” Zafira prompted.

Everyone sobered up, and Nanoha carefully unsealed one of the Jewel Seeds. Holding it like a live bomb, she handed it over to Shamal, who summoned the Book and opened it up.

The Seed, pulled by an unseen force, drifted over the Book’s pages. A glow surrounded it; Shamal gasped. Curious, Nanoha floated over to see what was happening. She couldn’t help but gasp herself when she could see: the book was writing itself, lines passing by at a dizzying pace.

“Is this normal?” she asked.

“Yes, but it’s never done so this fast!”

Despite the speed of the writing it still took several tense minutes for the Book to finish. The other guardians had wandered over to watch, and all present wondered what would happen first: the Seed running out of mana, or the Book filling itself.

It turned out to be the latter. The last page filled with scrawled writing, and then snapped shut over the Jewel Seed before vanishing. Nanoha blinked, her stomach plummeting.

“Where did it go?!” she demanded, half-panicked.

Nobody had time to ask whether she meant the Book or the Seed. A flash of light from Uminari distracted them. All eyes whirled toward the city, and it was Signum who triangulated the location first.

_“Hayate!”_


	6. Chapter 6

Signum lunged forward to try and get to Hayate, but her momentum was arrested by Zafira grabbing her from behind – quickly joined by glowing green binds from Shamal when that only slowed her down. Nanoha ignored that struggle in favor of switching Raising Heart to her Shooting Mode. She aimed the twin prongs at the front of the Device down at Uminari.

“Divine Buster Extension,” she whispered, careful to not actually gather any power. The scope that appeared on the shaft of her Device was what she wanted.

Peering down it, Nanoha found a house in smoldering ruin, and floating above it an indistinct figure in mostly dark purple with a smattering of silver for (probably) hair. A figure that abruptly vanished in a flash of light.

 _“Master, incoming teleportation!”_ Raising Heart warned.

Too late. With a flash, the much more distinct figure appeared in the center of the ragged half-circle formed by Vita, Nanoha, and Shamal in a line with Signum and Zafira on point. The young mage took her in: silver hair. Black, ragged wings. Dark purple dress with gold trim. Way too many belts wrapping around the legs. And a bland, stoic expression with eyes not looking at anything.

Behind and to her right, Zafira growled at the figure, “Who are you?” at the same time Vita and Signum, brandishing their weapons, all but shrieked, “What did you do to Hayate?!”

“I am the Will of the Book of Darkness,” the figure intoned. Robotic. Lifeless. “Hayate is safe. Locked within the Book where nothing can ever harm her.” Her eyes scanned over the Wolkenritter. “Guardian Knights of the Book of Darkness, your services are no longer required.”

Howling with rage, Vita and Signum rushed the Will, weapons raised. Zafira and Shamal summoned magic circles, spells imminent. Nanoha brought Raising Heart up, power gathering to fire off the Divine Buster Extension she’d half-prepared.

The Will was faster than all of them. The Book appeared in her hands, opened to a page, and manifested dark tendrils that reached out, grabbing the Wolkenritter. Before they could react, the tendrils retracted, sucking them in.

“Divine Buster Extension!” Nanoha cried out. “Shoot!”

The beam shot out – and splashed harmlessly against a dome barrier cast so fast that Nanoha didn’t even see the change. Though the Extension was weaker than a normal Divine Buster, it should have still done _something._ Yet the young mage felt no fear. Just anger, hot and bitter on her tongue.

“Why?!” she demanded of the Will. “Why did you do that? There was no reason! They were happy! Safe!”

“Incorrect. Mistress will be safe only once all threats have been eliminated.”

“Threats?!” Flailing, Nanoha pointed at herself. “I’m her friend! And-And Earth isn’t even magical! I might be the only mage on the planet!”

“Irrelevant. Mistress must survive.”

“And how is she going to live?!”

Silence fell, broken by Nanoha panting. But only briefly.

“This conversation is pointless,” the Will declared, closing her eyes. “Bring forth spears and infuse them with blood. Drill through, Bloody Dagger.”

Flier Fin active, Nanoha rocketed into the sky as a ring of daggers sailed underneath her. Already, she had a plan. If Divine Buster would just be caught on another barrier…

Banking around another spread of daggers, Nanoha fired off a spread of Divine Shooter bullets, followed shortly by a Restrict Lock. By now the Will had floated up into the air herself, and while the bullets impacted another barrier, the rings of the binding spell clamped down on the Will around all but the arm she’d used to cast the barrier.

_“Flash Impact.”_

It was that same arm that caught Raising Heart by the shaft. But it seemed the Will hadn’t gotten any information from absorbing Vita.

“Detonation.”

Otherwise she might’ve reacted before getting engulfed in a pink explosion.

Nanoha took the opportunity to get some distance, aiming Raising Heart. “Divine… Buster!” she cried out. Hopefully the Flash Impact blast had stunned the Will long enough to sneak the beam through.

Alas, it was not to be. Her Divine Buster once again was met with a barrier. And right before her eyes, the Will intoned “Bind Break” and the rings around her limbs shattered.

Nanoha was already on the move, prepared for another spread of daggers. She did not expect chains to shoot out from the Will and attempt to wrap around her. Nanoha shot up- and the chains clamped shut over her ankle.

“Oh no!” she yelped, trying desperately to remember Raising Heart’s months-old lessons on breaking binding spells. Too late. Dread pooled in her stomach, magical energy assaulted her senses, and she looked up to find the Will’s arm raised, a swirling orb of darkness gathered over her palm.

“Diabolic Emission.”

_“Wide Area Protection.”_

Nanoha managed to get her shield up in time to catch the spell on it.

It only helped a little.

~o~

Awareness returned to Hayate Yagami. Not fast, not slow. As if waking up after sleeping in a bit. She sat up, rubbing her eyes.

And froze as the memories of the last few minutes crashed down on her. Her knights. Their mission. The Book, and all it did when filled. Oh, and she was stuck in a featureless black void with no apparent way out and her legs still not working, so that was a problem, too.

Wherever she was, the only spot of color was a person. A woman with long silver hear wearing a black minidress and a long stocking on her right leg. At Hayate’s stirring, the person turned around to face her, an expression equal parts sad and resigned written on her face.

“Go back to sleep, Master,” the figure said in a kind but sad voice. “Escape this tragedy.” 

“W-What’s going on?” Hayate asked instead. “What tragic reality? Who are you?”

“I am the Will of the Book of Darkness. The Master Program, the guiding intelligence.” A sigh. “Or I was, once. Careless mages tampered with my programming, and now the Book’s Defense Program is in control. It seeks nought but the destruction of anything that might be a threat. Down to the very planet – and its own Mistress.”

Hayate gasped. “That’s… That’s awful! And you’ve-“

“I’ve watched,” the Will stated, voice hitching. “Over and over again, unable to do anything no matter how much I wished to. I gave no thought to my Masters, for they deserved their fates, but so many innocent people…”

The Will angrily swiped away tears. “So please, Master: go back to sleep. Dream happy. Escape, for a little longer, the cruel fate of this world.”

For a moment, silence reigned. And for a moment, it looked like Hayate might agree.

“No.”

The Will blinked, clearly taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Hayate repeated. Slowly, she gathered her feet under her. “I know what you want me to do. Maybe I would be happy. But it wouldn’t be _real.”_

“Master, the Defense Program cannot be stopped. I have tried, many times,” the Will retorted. “There is nothing anyone can do. Please, go back to sleep!”

“And I said no!” Hayate fired back. And at those words, she _stood._ “You said you cared nothing for the previous Masters, but you brought me _here._ You want me to be _safe._ I’m different from everyone who came before, aren’t I? How many others would you have willingly worked with?” She took a hesitant step towards the stunned, frozen Will. Then another. And another. “I am the Mistress of the Book of Darkness. The Book must do what I say!”

One last step put her in front of the Will. And she smiled.

“Though I’d really prefer working together to kick out that stupid Defense Program. What do you say?”

Sniffing, the Will wiped her eyes again and nodded. She held out her hands palms up in clear invitation. And Hayate, smiling, took them.

Information flowed through her. The Book, its spells, how it operated… the memories of her knights… and when Hayate stepped back, it was with far more assurance. Her clothes had transformed into a black and gold minidress under a long white jacket, a floppy white hat sprawled on her head. Three sets of black wings sprouted from her back, and an ornate golden staff rested in her right hand.

“Alright, Reinforce, let’s do this!” Hayate declared.

“R-Reinforce? Do you mean me?” the Will stammered.

“Yup! ‘The Will of the Book of Darkness’ is way too much of a mouthful, and also pretty bland. And since you reinforce me with the Unison…”

A pause. Then…

“I like it. Thank you, Hayate.”

Hayate beamed a second longer, then turned serious.

“Alright, first we need to take back my body,” she declared. Reaching out with her magic and her will, she grasped the cursed programming the Book had inserted and metaphorically yanked. The Defense Program’s control receded, but not entirely. Only enough to freeze her body in place.

“I believe a heavy magical shock to the Defense Program will allow us to regain full control,” Reinforce remarked.

Hayate, who had just been looking through her own eyes again, gulped audibly. “Think that’ll do it?”

Puzzled, Reinforce also looked. And had to suppress several Belkan swear words.

“Hayate, just so you know, that is going to hurt.”

“Figured…”

~o~

Nanoha tumbled, uncontrolled, out of the sky. Smoke trailed off of her from the burned rents in her dress, and one of her pigtails had come undone, her auburn hair trailing loosely in the wind.

Gasping, Nanoha let out several hacking coughs and righted herself, taking stock of her injuries. She could feel livid burns on her face and under the rests in her dress, and her whole body ached as bad as the morning after her fight with Vita. None of it was debilitating, though, and she could still fight.

A good thing, too. She looked up, and hastily threw herself to the side as a shard of what looked like pure darkness the size of an especially large tree shot past her before hitting the ground with an almighty crunching sound. Nanoha initiated a series of random maneuvers, which let her evade more of those Bloody Daggers, and as she did she glanced down at the earlier spell’s impact point.

There was a rent in the earth big enough to swallow up a building. And not a small one.

“Meep.”

No, Nanoha could and would fight. The question was _how,_ if she wanted to actually win. Her opponent was not fast or tricky; she stood in place and had only cast five spells. But those spells were very powerful and cast very fast, and nothing she’d thrown at the Will had done any apparent damage.

Another spread of daggers flew toward her, and as she evaded Nanoha began charging up a Starlight Breaker. It was the only spell of hers she hadn’t tried, and more importantly her strongest. That the air was saturated in mana from the Diabolic Emission was icing on the cake. Chains lashed out again, but now the young mage was expecting them, and she shot up and out of the way – and right into the path of a _dragon!_ A sinuous, red, and very large dragon whose open maw was about two seconds away from biting down on her.

Nanoha hastily rolled to the left, firing off her “Starlight Breaker!” at the thing. The beam engulfed its head and disintegrated it, and it vanished into particles of magic.

Panting, Nanoha was given no time to recover. More of the daggers screamed in. The young mage grit her teeth, even as she took off into another set of random evasive maneuvers. She needed more power. And a moment unmolested, but mostly more power. Vita had had those magical bullets – cartridges, that’s what they were called – and oh what she wouldn’t give for Raising Heart to have such a system. The only thing Nanoha could come up with instead was a good deal crazier.

“Raising Heart, unseal Jewel Seed, Serial XVI,” she ordered, still flying evasive. She winced as one dagger grazed her back, though thankfully it didn’t cut through the inner layer of her dress.

_“Affirmative.”_

The Seed came out of Raising Heart’s head, and Nanoha reached out and grabbed it. Immediately, it responded to her desires, glowing with activated power. A _lot_ of power, all of it flowing out in the usual uncontrolled manner of the Jewel Seeds. It took everything Nanoha had to contain it, something not helped by the sizzling sound and burning feeling in her hand. Howling, she slammed it against the haft of Raising Heart, where it settled into the metal and calmed down.

 _“Jewel Seed fusion complete. New designation: Raising Heart Exelion.”_ A pause. _“Master, are you alright?”_

“Hurts…” Nanoha whimpered. Her hand quivered in pain, a Jewel Seed-shaped burn seared into her palm. She tried to grasp Raising Heart, but with a gasp she pulled her hand away. It hurt too much.

A glove shimmered to life over her hand, black with blue lines tracing the finger bones. Gingerly, Nanoha tested her grip. It stung, but the worst of the pain was gone.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Nanoha looked around for further attacks. Nothing.

“What’s she doing?” she wondered. Brow furrowed, she glanced up to where the Will had last been.

And where she currently was, frozen with one arm outstretched and a rictus of concentration on her face.

“Huh.” Nanoha grinned. “Alright, let’s go! Raising Heart, Exelion Mode!”

_“Affirmative.”_

Raising Heart’s head changed again, wrapping around to a triangular spearhead with the shrunken control gem in the center at the end of the shaft. A thin blade of energy stretched out along the centerline, and flaring out from the base of the spearhead were what looked like vents.

“Charge!” Nanoha ordered. At the command, pink wings sprouted both from the vents at the base and two new ones along the sides of the sprearhead. All four flared with magic, and Nanoha rocketed toward the Will faster than she’d ever gone.

Despite the fact that the Will couldn’t move, evidently she could still cast. A shimmering barrier sprang up between them, absorbing the tip of the spear and stopping it with barely an inch penetration.

Nanoha’s smile didn’t shift a millimeter.

“Exelion Buster! Break Shoot!”

A ball of energy bloomed on the spear tip, shrank, and then fired as a ravening beam of energy that caught the Will full-on. Then it exploded.

Panting, Nanoha floated back, warily eyeing the smoke cloud left behind. Her left leg spasmed, right around the knee joint. But that was ignored when the young mage heard a dainty cough inside the smoke. She didn’t dare believe, though, until the smoke cleared enough to show Hayate’s silhouette. And it _was_ Hayate’s.

“Hayate!” Nanoha cried, flying into the brown-haired girl in a tackle-hug that almost knocked her out of the air. “You’re alright!”

“It was a little hairy there for a bit,” Hayate admitted, before wincing as the ongoing hug pressed against something tender. “Jeez, Nanoha, you hit like a truck.”

Nanoha didn’t reply in words. She just hugged harder. This lasted for another minute or two before she pulled away.

“What did you do, exactly?” she asked.

“Well, I got in touch with the Book’s Master Program, and it turns out she isn’t any more on board with the whole ‘destroying the planet’ thing as either of us. Now we’re friends and she helped me kick out all the bad programming that was causing all this,” Hayate explained, before indicating her staff. “Nanoha, meet Reinforce. Well, technically, she’s unisoned with me, so we’re the same person, but the staff is easier to talk to.”

Nanoha turned to the staff and bowed politely. “Nice to meet you, Reinforce.”

“A-Ah, likewise,” Reinforce stammered through the staff. It was surprisingly cute.

Sadly, the moment was broken by a deep-throated, distant roar. Both girls turned seaward, where a hideous mismatch of animal parts could be seen rising above the water.

“What is _that?!”_ Nanoha yelped.

“That’s the bad programming I kicked out. It’s the Book’s defense program,” Hayate answered. “It’s the real enemy here. But to beat something like that, we’ll need help.”

Hayate closed her eyes, and glowed with magic. To Nanoha’s astonishment all four Wolkenritter shimmered back to life – and immediately fell to their knees.

“Master- Hayate,” Signum bit out. “We have disobeyed your orders, worked behind your back in secret, and in doing so, we have become the cause of this situation. We await whatever punishment you deem fit.”

Silence, stretching on, and on-

“Oh, stand up, you silly geese,” Hayate said, smiling. “You’re all forgiven. You were just trying to save me the only way you knew how. I can’t punish you for that. Especially when we’ve got a runaway Defense Program to tackle. Just don’t make a habit of it, okay?”

The Defense Program roared again, drawing the Wolkenritter’s attention to that hideous monstrosity.

“Heheheh…”

All eyes snapped to Vita, right as she threw her head back and _laughed._

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

It was a deep laugh, right from the belly, but it wasn’t one of mirth. It was one of _relief._

“Finally!” she declared, hefting her hammer with an ear-to-ear grin on her face. “No more sticky moral questions! No more guilt! Just a big monster to smash!”

“I find myself in agreement,” Signum decided, drawing her sword with a smile on her face. “A simple problem to be solved with force is quite welcome.”

“Okay, you battle maniacs, don’t go charging in yet,” Hayate cut in, deadpan. “Zafira, go put up a phase barrier before someone calls the JSDF. Shamal, Nanoha’s injuries.”

“Injuries?!” Shamal exclaimed in great offense as Zafira took off. Nanoha instinctively cringed back as the blonde stalked up to her.

“I-I’m fine!” she tried.

“Nanoha.”

Nanoha turned to Vita, who wore the most uncharacteristically serious expression she’d ever seen on the diminutive hammer-wielder.

“Don’t argue with the medic, okay?”

Nodding, Nanoha didn’t protest as Shamal ran a glowing spell – probably a diagnostic spell – up and down her body. Aside from a sharp tsk when it passed over her right hand, Shamal said nothing until she was finished.

“Alright, let me fix up your hand,” she declared, bringing another glowing spell over the burned limb. “I’d love to fix up the rest, but worst-case you’ll only be sore and stinging for a few days. This fight takes priority.”

Nanoha nodded. The pain steadily receded from her hand, and when Zafira reported back that the barrier was up the pain was gone entirely. Her hand was still a livid red when she took the glove off, though, and it itched horribly.

“That’s normal,” Shamal said when that was pointed out to her, after they all took flight. “Just treat it like a sunburn!”

That brief bit of levity did not change the fact that it was a grim group that slipped through Zafira’s phase barrier to confront the Defense Program.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, I probably mangled the Hayate/Reinforce scene compared to canon, but it's been a hot minute since I watched A's. My memory's not that good, I'm afraid.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in case anyone's wondering why this is a bit late, well, this chapter kinda kicked my ass the whole time. I only just got to a version I was satisfied with. And a big shoutout to my beta Xomniac for helping me with that.

Nanoha passed through Zafira’s phase barrier, between Vita and Shamal, and gasped in disgust. The Defense Program, half in the water, was even more hideous up close, a mish-mash of animal parts from octopoid tentacles to reptilian scales to parts from animals she couldn’t even name. Ironically, the sheer amount of _stuff_ on the thing meant it wasn’t that scary; there were only so many hideous spines and oozing pustules and mouths and eyes in the wrong places the mind could process before it started ignoring them. Instead, her attention was drawn to Zafira, who was flying rings around the tentacles it was trying to swat him with.

“Alright, ladies, here’s the plan,” Hayate announced. “We have a pretty simple objective: find the Defense Program’s processing core, expose it, and destroy it. Shamal, go join Zafira and lock it in place. Nanoha, Signum, Vita, you and I are going to charge up the biggest spells we have. Once it’s pinned, we blast it, and hopefully that’ll expose the core.”

Shamal nodded and flew off to join Zafira, while Vita scoffed.

“That’s it?” she said. “Just blast it until it gives up?”

“I do not believe that this is an enemy that requires sophisticated tactics to beat,” Signum stated, dry as the Sahara heat.

Looking at the Defense Program try to swat down Zafira – completely physical, no spells whatsoever – Nanoha couldn’t help but agree. The big swings were so telegraphed even _she_ could read the pattern well in advance. Abruptly, Zafira switched from lazy evasion to an attack. Glowing blue spikes rained down on the Defense Program, nailing it in place, while Shamal, just arriving, conjured up her glowing green ribbons and wrapped up the limbs. It was well and truly trussed up, and this with none of the trouble Nanoha had had fighting its human-sized from.

“Huh. You’re right. Figured it’d be fighting smarter than this,” Vita remarked.

“Reinforce and I ripped out all its spells when we kicked it out, so it’s just a big, dumb target,” Hayate remarked, a vicious grin on her face. She held her hand out. “Resound, horn of the end!”

A triangular spell array flared to life below Hayate, terminating in sub-circles at the corners and pointed down at the Defense Program. Flanking her, Signum and Vita brandished their weapons. Cartridges rammed home, in the base of the blade in Signum’s case.

“Graf Eisen, Gigantform!”

_“Jawohl.”_

Vita’s hammer shifted shape, becoming flat-headed and octagonal and growing in size, bigger and bigger until it veritably dwarfed not only the small Vita, but also the rather tall Signum.

The swordswoman, meanwhile, pulled her sheath off her belt and slammed it into the hilt of the sword. The two merged and shifted to form a greatbow as tall as its wielder. An arrow materialized and was nocked, bursting into flame.

Nanoha didn’t have anything so dramatic. She just charged up another Exelion Buster, ignoring the throbs of pain it sent through her body.

“Exelion Buster! Break Shoot!” she declared, firing the pink beam.

“Ragnarok! Break!” Hayate bellowed.

“Sturmfalken. Fly, falcon!”

Nanoha’s beam was joined by three white beams crackling with black lightning from Hayate, and a bird made of fire wrapped around Signum’s arrow. All three blasts descended onto the Defense Program, which bound as it was couldn’t put up even a token defense, and all exploded at once, throwing up a massive cloud of steam.

Vita didn’t wait for it to clear, bringing down her hammer onto the spot where the Defense Program had been with an earth-shaking smash. Only then did everyone pause to assess.

It was a pause Nanoha sorely needed. While everyone else still seemed to be fresh – Zafira and Shamal had returned to the group and were already casting precautionary barriers – Nanoha _ached,_ ached both with some odd soreness and plain exhaustion. The fight with the Book, plus two energy-hog Exelion Busters, had drained her of mana. The Jewel Seed embedded in Raising Heart was, frankly, more of a boost on top of her magic than something that could take the burden off of her.

Feeling Hayate and Signum’s eyes on her, Nanoha tried to wave off her exhaustion. “I’m fine, I can-“

“Nanoha, no, you’re exhausted,” Hayate interrupted. “Stay back and we’ll-“

The steam finished clearing, revealing the Defense Program once again in all its grotesquery. Entirely new grotesquery, mind; it had grown a spiny shell to go with the tentacles, which covered up all the eyes and mouths. The spines could be fired from a distance, as it demonstrated by firing a spread of at them. Despite being the approximate size of a telephone pole, they simply bounced off the barriers Shamal and Zafira had set up.

Though from the grimaces on their faces, that wasn’t something they would be able to keep up for very long.

“Oh, come on!” Hayate snapped, waving her staff in indignation.

“Um, I might be able to get one more Exelion Buster off?” Nanoha offered.

“Don’t bother in your condition,” Vita bluntly replied. “Besides, we just hit it with our strongest spells, and no core. Signum and I only have so many cartridges, we can’t just keep spamming attacks and hope that does the trick.”

More spines came screaming in; the mages elected to dodge that particular salvo.

“Shamal, perhaps you could teleport the Defense Program to a location where it can no longer do any harm?” Signum wondered. “On a trajectory towards this planet’s sun, for instance.”

Shamal hummed in thought. “I think I could. But you’ll need to pin it again.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Hayate decided. She turned to Nanoha, concern written all over her features. “Nanoha-“

And was met with stubborn defiance. “Restrict Lock is a collection spell like Starlight Breaker. I can cast it.”

Sighing, Hayate nodded in acquiescence. Then blinked. And abruptly paled to bone-white.

A millisecond later, everyone else felt what she felt: a nail in the brains, a jagged scream in their ears. The Wolkenritter immediately grasped what was going on. And nobody needed to be told what the source was.

“It’s creating a space-time distortion! If you think of space-time as an ocean, this would be a storm!” Shamal explained to Hayate and Nanoha.

“That’s how the Book destroys planets!” Hayate added. Everyone winced as, with a pulse like a heartbeat, the distortion grew. “Except _how?_ That was one of the spells I removed when Reinforce and I ripped the Defense Program out!”

This time, it was Nanoha who paled in realization. “The Jewel Seed!” she cried out. “The Jewel Seed we used to fill the Book! The Book closed right on it, and it must have absorbed the whole thing!”

Silence met this declaration. Then…

“Nanoha…” Hayate said very slowly and evenly. “What do Jewel Seeds _do_ besides act as magical batteries?”

“The S-Seeds respond to wishes, desires,” Nanoha answered, her eyes locked onto the Defense Program. “And the Defense Program wishes to destroy…”

Silence, once again. Nanoha was deaf to whatever conversation was going on around her. She just stared at the Defense Program, felt the growing distortion in her magical senses, and knew one thing for certain:

_‘This is my fault.’_

“… Nanoha…”

She jerked, turning around. “Eh?”

“Nanoha, I need five Jewel Seeds,” Hayate all but ordered.

“What?!” Nanoha yelped. “We have a Jewel Seed causing this problem, and you want _more?!”_

“I don’t have time to explain the theory, just do it!”

The two stared at each other for a long moment. Then Nanoha sighed and unsealed five Jewel Seeds and passed them over.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Hayate,” she said.

“Yeah, me too,” the other mage muttered. “Alright, Nanoha, get a sealing spell ready. Everyone else, take a Jewel Seed. Land in a pentagram formation start wishing really, really hard to contain the distortion.”

That got her incredulous looks from all her knights, but they still took the Jewel Seeds and flew off. Hayate did not: Nanoha was still there, and very pointedly _not_ preparing a sealing spell. In fact, she looked like she was two seconds away from bursting into tears.

“Hayate, i-if you do this…” she said, voice trembling. “I- for s-something like this, I can’t f-finesse the spell. You’re all g-going to be s-sealed, too.”

“Yeah…” Hayate sighed. “I had a feeling that would be the case.”

Tears began to flow from Nanoha’s scrunched-up eyes. “I just met you! And now you’re going to be gone, and it’s all my fault, and it’s not fair! Hayate, I’m so, so sorry, I-!”

Suddenly, Nanoha found herself wrapped up in a warm hug. “It’s not your fault,” Hayate said softly. “If it weren’t for you, the Book would’ve just slowly drained me to death. This way, at least I can _do_ something.” She pulled back, looking her friend right in her eyes. “This isn’t goodbye, Nanoha, not forever! You’ll find a way to unseal us and deal with this thing, once and for all! I know it!”

Stunned, Nanoha could only watch as Hayate pulled back and clapped her on the shoulder. The distortion picked this time to pulse, and Hayate tilted her head as if to listen to something.

“We’re out of time,” Hayate said. She smiled at Nanoha. “Remember. Not goodbye forever, okay?”

Flying off, she floated down to the point of the pentagram formed with her Knights. As soon as she touched down on the water, the Jewel Seeds they all held glowed. Sniffing, Nanoha wiped her eyes and prepared her sealing spell.

And then, finally, the Book tore spacetime asunder.

The spell Hayate and the Wolkenritter cast an instant before that happened was not a spell in the conventional sense, as a Mid-Childan mage would have reckoned it. Reinforce, linking with the Armed Devices of the Wolkenritter, was at least able to provide some mathematical foundation, but ultimately, it was something of a throwback of the days before Devices standardized magic. It was will given the energy to act; a reproducible miracle, you could say. The Jewel Seeds reacted to this will, as was their function, conscious and unconscious. Any deviation in desire would have led to catastrophic contradiction in purpose.

The Book had designed the Knights to be unquestionably loyal to their Master. Even disobeying Hayate to collect the pages had been done with the intent of saving her life. Unity of purpose was not a problem they faced.

As for what the spell actually _did,_ to grossly oversimplify the spell was akin to a dam holding back a reservoir, in this case the spacetime distortion. And like all dams, it had a ‘spillway’ to discharge any excess. Despite this relief valve the containment was a tremendous strain on the spell structure, strain that translated to the Linker Cores of the mages casting it as more mana flowed from the Jewel Seeds into the spell.

The Book had designed the Knights to be immensely sturdy physically and magically. They were not, in fact, technically alive. As living magical constructs it took a great deal of energy flow to damage their structure. And Hayate had absorbed the Book’s core, and could channel as much mana as her Knights combined. It was a strain, but they could bear it.

For now. Given enough time, the strain would have overwhelmed them – and the spell as well. So, despite her tears flowing again, Nanoha fired her sealing spell, backed up by the power of another Jewel Seed, at the entire circle. The effort strained her, too; both her magic, drawing so much power, and her mind, sealing the Defense Program and it’s Seed without sealing one of the containment Seeds. It did not help that the entire planet was shaking with what was happening to it.

Cracks developed in Raising Heart’s frame. Nanoha’s breath came in ragged gasps, pain wracking her body. But finally, the central Jewel Seed– and by extension, the Defense Program that had absorbed it – went quiescent. The sealing spell spread out to engulf Hayate and her Wolkenritter, and Nanoha, exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally, couldn’t stop it.

And as the sealed Seeds and Defense Program sunk beneath the waves, as the phase barrier rolled back with no one to sustain it, Nanoha shakily turned around and flew home, wobbling drunkenly.

~o~

Of course, continuing the spillway metaphor for a moment, the excess distortion, for lack of a better term, had to go _somewhere._ This part required the most heavy lifting from the gathered devices; the mighty waves of space-time were directed outwards until they cleared most of the solar system (a few Kuiper objects were unfortunate casualties) and could be left to spread out in all directions.

The ultimate result for Dimensional Space was akin to a hurricane hitting, though thankfully a short-lived one.

The TSAB Navy’s headquarters, a giant stone castle floating in Dimensional Space, was the first to be hit. Alarms had already started blaring the second the Defense Program started the distortion, giving the Navy time to send out a warning. But not, with all the scrambling about, time to do more than brace when the storm hit _them._

Pretty much every sailor stationed there that day agreed on one thing: spin cycle _sucks._

It took some time to take stock of the damage. Many ships lost, many installations damaged, the merchant ships plying dimensional space temporarily grounded for their own safety – and, of course, Unadministered World 97, the epicenter and believed lost. An investigation was launched, of course. The investigators even, despite a dire lack of clues, managed to track down the ultimate sources of the distortion. It came out that Admiral Gil Graham had been Hayate’s benefactor, in hopes of catching the Book after it activated within her and sealing it for good. Believing that it was this that had destroyed UA 97, he confessed out of guilt and was quietly retired.

The Jewel Seeds, meanwhile, were tracked to a ship that had been travelling from an archaeological dig and ambushed as it passed UA 97 – ambushed by notorious criminal Precia Testarossa. The woman, dying and insane, had nonetheless not gone down quietly, and her cloned daughter Fate Testarossa slipped the net in the chaos.

~o~

The air was filled with acrid smoke, and Chrono’s flight was erratic with how often the Garden of Time some part of itself off. Something had changed in the last couple of minutes, making their job easier in some ways - the robots were a great deal more predictable now, and last he saw him Grangeitz had been smashing them apart in quantity - and in others a lot harder. Case in point, the chunk of masonry the Enforcer had to hastily forward-roll under. But he was close to the control center of the Garden. Close to ending this whole thing once and for all. 

Well, assuming he could last long enough against Precia Testarossa. Grangeitz wouldn’t take long to clear out the robots and follow him, but Testarossa was an SS-rank mage for a reason. 

Chrono put that morbid thought of his mind as he banked tightly and blasted open the door to the Garden’s control center. “Precia Testarossa, you’re under ar-”

Precia Testarossa lay in a heap in the center of the command center, blood oozing out from under her. At her side, her daughter, the clone, Fate Testarossa, was desperately shaking her, sobbing. 

“Mama… Mama, don’t go… please… I’ll be good, Mama… don’t go…”

In that moment, Chrono Harlaown didn’t see a criminal. He just saw a sad, scared little girl who had just lost the only family she’d ever known. He lowered his Device, and stepped forward. Again. Closer. Testarossa looked up, eyes red and wild. 

“Surrender,” he said. “This- it’s bad, but you’re young. If you turn yourself in-”

“NO!”

Electricity slammed into him, carrying Chrono off his feet and into a twitching heap. _‘I didn’t even see her_ cast…’ he mentally groaned. 

“If it weren’t for you-!” he could hear Testarossa shouting. “None of this would have happened! I’ll hate you forever!” And then, in a whisper he almost missed over the crumbling citadel, “Almost as much as I hate myself…”

Feeling his muscles again, Chrono hauled himself to his feet - right as Testarossa’s canine familiar burst in and wrapped him up in a Chain Bind. “Dammit!”

“Fate, we need to go!” the familiar declared. 

“We bring Mama, too,” Testarossa replied, her voice like iron. 

There was a brief pause, before the familiar said, “Yeah, sure.”

Growling, Chrono redoubled his efforts to shatter the bind. Of course, he wasn’t anywhere close to finished when a teleportation circle flared and whisked Testarossa, her familiar, and her mother’s corpse to Sankt Kaiser knew where. 

Quint Nakajima burst into the room bare seconds later, right as Chrono finished unravelling the bind. “What happened?” she asked. 

“Precia Testarossa is dead,” Chrono said bluntly. “Her daughter escaped with her familiar, though.”

“Tch,” Quint bit out. “Damn. That could be a problem later.”

And despite the fact that Fate Testarossa was now one her own with no resources besides her own skills, Chrono had a gut feeling that that would be true. 

~o~

With both Lost Logia presumed destroyed, at least for now in the case of the Book, and the culprits seemingly taken care of, the TSAB closed the book on the case, mourned for a short while, and filed a note in the bureaucracy to send a survey ship to check UA 97’s grave in ten years or so. Then, it moved on, to other disasters that they could actually do something about.

Like Fate Testarossa, who proved Chrono’s gut feeling right by bedeviling the TSAB for a decade. Frankly, it was hard to tell who High Command feared more these days, Testarossa or Scaglietti.

~o~

When Nanoha had flown off to meet the Wolkenritter, she had of course told her family. Not everything – she quite rightly assumed sharing her overall plan would’ve led to strenuous objections – but enough. She’d also assured them she’d be back home in time for dinner. When she wasn’t, and strange flashes of light bloomed over the mountains surrounding the city, they became worried. Worry that intensified with the brief glimpse of the strange monster offshore.

That had been over an hour ago. The waiting was _agonizing._ Only Shiro remained calm through long experience, though anyone that knew him could see the tension in his shoulders and his stiff posture at the kitchen table. Momoko had lasted about ten minutes before bustling into the kitchen to do some stress-baking. Kyouya had retrieved a sword and a whetstone and was busy sharpening the blade. And Miyuki was wearing a groove in the floor, with occasional aborted attempts to go for the door.

The doorbell rang. Miyuki scrambled for the front door, feet skidding on the polished wood below. She all but threw the door open, and found Nanoha standing forlornly on the step. Miyuki took in the dried tears running down her cheeks, her torn clothing and missing hair tie, that her body was swaying in exhaustion.

“Nanoha-“ she breathed.

At her name, Nanoha half-rushed, half slumped into Miyuki’s waist, sobbing openly. Carefully, Miyuki maneuvered her into the house, and to her family. They all spent the next ten minutes or so in a pile on one of the couches, simply soothing Nanoha as she cried. By the end, she’d simply passed out, the toll of the day catching up to her.

Momoko carried Nanoha back up to her bed, glancing at Shiro as she left. Something passed between them, and Shiro nodded, beckoning Kyouya and Miyuki towards.

“Alright, how are we handling this?” Kyouya asked immediately.

Shiro had to suppress a smile. “We call the school and get her some time off. We call her friends to let them know. And then we simply be there for her until she feels ready to open up about what happened.” His eyes narrowed and fell on Miyuki. “That means _don’t bother her_ about what happened.”

“Why are you singling me out?!” Miyuki protested.

“Because you’re compulsively nosy,” Kyouya retorted. “I still haven’t forgotten that time you crashed my date with Shinobu last Valentine’s.”

_“One time!”_

“Ahem,” Shiro interjected, prompting both siblings to freeze and clam up.

“Uh, okay, point taken,” Miyuki replied, sheepish. “I can’t promise I won’t ask at some point, though.”

A nod. “Just don’t push it. Now, let’s all go to bed ourselves. I know how stressful these sorts of waits can be.”

~o~

Touching down on the muddy bottom of the ocean just offshore of Uminari, Chrono reached out, pressing his hand against the mighty crystal that was the seal against the Book. Through his hand, he pushed a little magic into the seal to see how it worked.

 _‘Well,’_ he concluded once his magic returned. _‘This would give every spellcrafter on Mid-Childa an aneurysm, but if it’s held this long it’ll hold long enough for us to figure out what to do with it.’_

And wasn’t _that_ a headache and a half in the making. Chrono, when he’d asked Takamachi to show him the seal, had been all set to leave the seal in place. He had a personal history with the Book: in its last appearance, his father Clyde had been among the fatalities. He had as good a grievance against the book as anyone else in Dimensional Space. And despite being the one to arrest his mentor Gil Graham for sacrificing a life to seal the Book, at the time he’d been unable to say that he would’ve done anything different had he been in the old man’s shoes.

And yet, when he saw the up-to-now unflappable Takamachi slump to the ground, tears in her eyes, that conviction evaporated. This was a woman who just wanted her friends back. Friends that, from her story, were no more responsible for the Book’s atrocities than himself or Takamachi. Also, Chrono was also no longer that headstrong 15-year-old, so sure in his convictions and yet still with a fair bit of growing up to do. After that moment on the Garden of Time with a grief-stricken Fate Testarossa, he knew for certain that he could never sacrifice the young girl in the center of this spell. And Takamachi’s pain was hauntingly familiar, in more ways than one.

Besides, the fight with the Defense Program she’d described? Nothing like that had _ever_ happened in all the history they had on the Book. Maybe Takamachi and Yagami were actually onto something and had a method to destroy the Book for good. Sankt Kaiser knew how temporary a solution seals tended to be for Lost Logia like this. And so Chrono came to a decision.

“Takamachi,” he said, getting a flinching jerk. “You didn’t hear this from me, but many of the higher-ups in the TSAB will want to leave Hayate and the Book sealed. But. Make a formal request for assistance to unseal and destroy the Book, and I’ll throw my support behind it.” A smirk. “And the support of my _many_ high-placed connections.”

“Thank you, Captain Harlaown,” Takamachi said, wiping her eyes. She stood, giving him a wan smile. “Do you need any more time here?”

“No, I think I know enough,” Chrono decided. “Captain to bridge, bring us back up.”

_“Roger.”_


End file.
